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VERACITY 



THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 



ARGUED FROM THE 



UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES 



TO BE FOUND IN THEM, 



WHEN COMPARED IN THEIR SEVERAL PARTS. 



. J? J. 



BY THE REV. J: J; BLUNT, 

FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 



NEW EDITION. 



LONDON: 
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 

MDCCCXXXV. 



123 5" 



LONDON : 

Printed by W. CLOWES and SONS, 

Stamford Street. 



»6ii2Ar«|-^Ci)i^ 



TO 
THE VERY REV. JAMES WOOD, D.D., 

DEAN OF ELY J 

MASTER OF ST. JOHN' S COLLEGE., CAMBRIDGE; 

IN TOKEN OF UNFEIGNED RESPECT AND REGARD FOR THE 

ANCIENT AND RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION ITSELF 

OYER WHICH HE PRESIDES J 

FOR THE ATTAINMENTS BY WHICH HE ADORNS IT; 

FOR THE ZEALOUS AND DISINTERESTED SPIRIT IN WHICH 

HE PROMOTES ITS WELFARE ', 

AND 

FOR THOSE PRIVATE VIRTUES WHICH MAKE ITS MEMBERS 

HIS PERSONAL FRIENDS ; 

THIS ATTEMPT 
TO CONFIRM THE EVIDENCE OF THE 

MOSAIC WRITINGS, 

(BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF A COURSE OF SERMONS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY,) 

IS INSCRIBED, 

BY HIS FAITHFUL AND OBLIGED SERVANT, 

J. J. BLUNT. 



VERACITY 



OF THE 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 



It is my intention to argue in the following 
pages the Veracity of the Five Books of 
Moses, from the instances they contain of 
coincidence without design, in their several 
parts. I am not aware that this test of 
truth (to which alone I shall appeal) has 
been deliberately, applied to these writings, 
except by Dr. Graves in two of his useful 
Lectures upon the Pentateuch. In them 
he has done much, but much he has still 
left to be done by others ; and though I do 
not lay claim to the merit (whatever it may 
be) of actually discovering all the examples 

B 



Z THE VERACITY OF THE 

of consistency without contrivance which 
I shall bring forward in this volume ; and 
though in many cases, where the detection 
was my own, I found on examination that 
there were others who had forestalled me 
— qui nostra ante nos — yet some of them I 
have not seen noticed by commentators at 
all, and scarcely any of them in that light 
in which only I regard them, as grounds of 
evidence. It is to this application, there- 
fore, of expositions, often in themselves suf- 
ficiently familiar, that I have to beg the 
candid attention of my readers ; and if I 
shall frequently bring out of the treasures 
of God's Word, or of the interpretations of 
God's Word, " things old" the use that I 
make of them may not perhaps be altoge- 
ther thought so. 

But before I proceed to individual in- 
stances, I will endeavour to develope a 
principle upon which the Book of Genesis 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 3 

goes as a whole, for this is in itself an ex- 
ample of consistency. 

I. 

There may be those who look upon the 
Book of Genesis as an epitome of the general 
history of the world in its early ages, and 
of the private history of certain families 
more distinguished than the rest. And so 
it is, and on a first view it may seem to be 
little else ; but if we consider it more 
closely, I think we may convince ourselves 
of the truth of this proposition, that it con- 
tains fragments (as it were) of the fabric of 
a Patriarchal Church — fragments scattered 
indeed and imperfect, but capable of com- 
bination, and when combined, consistent as 
a whole. Now it is not easy to imagine 
that any impostor would set himself to 
compose a book upon a plan so recondite ; 
nor, if he did, would it be possible for him 

b 2 



4 THE VERACITY OF THE 

to execute it as it is executed here. For 
the incidents which go to prove this pro- 
position are to be picked out from among 
many others; and on being brought toge- 
ther by ourselves, they are found to agree 
together as parts of a system, though they 
are not contemplated as such, or at least 
are not produced as such by the author 
himself. 

I am aware that whilst we are endea- 
vouring to obtain a view of such a Patri- 
archal Church by the glimpses afforded us 
in Genesis, there is a danger of our theo- 
logy becoming visionary : — it is a search 
upon which the imagination enters with 
alacrity, and readily breaks its bounds — it 
has done so in former times and in our own. 
Still the principle of such investigation is 
good ; for out of God's book, as out of God's 
world, more may be often concluded than 
our philosophy at first suspects. The prin- 






FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. O 

ciple is good, for it is sanctioned by our 
Lord himself, who reproaches the Saddu- 
cees with not knowing those Scriptures 
which they received, because they had not 
deduced the doctrine of a future state from 
the words of Moses — " I am the God of 
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob " — though the doctrine was 
there if they would but have sought it out. 
One consideration, however, we must take 
along with us in this inquiry, that the 
Books of Moses are in most cases a very 
incomplete history of facts — telling some- 
thing, and leaving a great deal untold — 
abounding in chasms which cannot be filled 
up — not, therefore, to be lightly esteemed 
even in their hints, for hints are often all 
that they offer. 

The proofs of this are numberless ; but 
as it is important to my argument that the 
thing itself should be distinctly borne in 



O THE VERACITY OF THE 

mind, I will name a few. Thus if we read 
the history of Joseph, as it is given in the 
37th chapter of Genesis, where his brethren 
first put him into the pit and then sell him 
to the Ishmaelites, we might conclude that 
he was himself quite passive in the whole 
transaction. Yet when the brothers hap- 
pen to talk together upon this same subject 
many years afterwards in Egypt, they say 
one to another, " We are verily guilty con- 
cerning our brother, in that we saw the 
anguish of his soul when he besought us, and 
we would not hear."* All these fervent 
entreaties are sunk in the direct history of 
the event, and only come out by accident 
after all. 

As another instance. The simple account 
of Jacob's reluctance to part with Benjamin 
would lead us to suppose that it was ex- 
pressed and overcome in a short time, and 
* Genesis xlii. 21. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 7 

with no great effort. Yet we incidentally 
hear from Judah that this family struggle 
(for such it seems to have been) had occu- 
pied as much time as would have sufficed 
for a journey to Egypt and back.* 

As a third instance. The several bless- 
ings which Jacob bestows on his sons have 
probably a reference to the past as well as 
to the future fortunes of each. In the case 
of Reuben, the allusion happens to be to a 
circumstance in his life with which we are 
already acquainted ; here, therefore, we 
understand the old man's address ; f but 
in the case of several at least of his other 
sons, where there are probably similar allu- 
sions to events in their lives too, which 
have not, however, been left on record, 
there is much that is obscure — the brevity 
of the previous narrative not supplying us 
with the proper key to the blessing. It is 
* Genesis xliii. 10. t xlix. 4. 






8 THE VERACITY OF THE 

needless to multiply instances ; all that I 
wish to impress is this, that in the Book of 
Genesis a hint is not to be wasted but im- 
proved ; and that he who expects every 
probable deduction from Scripture to be 
made out complete in all its parts before he 
will admit it, expects more than he will in 
many cases meet with, and will learn much 
less than he might otherwise learn. 

Having made these preliminary remarks, 
I shall now proceed to collect the detached 
incidents in Genesis which appear to point 
out the existence of a Patriarchal Church. 
And the circumstance of so many incidents 
tending to this one centre, though evidently 
without being marshalled or arranged, im- 
plies veracity in the record itself, for it is 
a very comprehensive instance of coincidence 
without design in the several parts of that 
record. 

1. First, then, the Patriarchs seem to 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. V 

have had places set apart for the worship 
of God, consecrated, as it were, especially 
to His service. To do things " before the 
Lord," is a phrase not unfrequently occur- 
ring, and generally in a local sense. Cain 
and Abel appear to have brought their 
offerings to the same spot — -it might be (as 
some have thought*) to the East of the 
Garden, where the symbols of God's pre- 
sence were displayed; and when Cain is 
banished from his first dwelling, and driven 
to wander upon the earth, he is said to 
have " gone out from the presence of the 
Lord" t as though, in the land where he 
was henceforward to live, he would no 
longer have access to the spot where God 
had more especially set his name. " More- 
over, when it is said of Cain, ' If thou 
doest not well, sin (or the sin-offering) lieth 

* Vide Mr. Faber's Three Dispensations, vol. i. p. 8, 
and comp. Wisdom ix. 9 ; Hooker, Eccles. Pol. b. v. 
§11. t Genesis iv. 16. 

B 3 



10 THE VERACITY OF THE 

at the door,' the door of a tabernacle or 
temple of God is evidently intended ; for 
there the sacrifices were constantly brought 
in later times."* Again, of Rebekah we 
read, that when the children struggled 
within her, " she went to inquire of the 
Lord," and an answer was received pro- 
phetic of the different fortunes of those 
children, f And when Isaac contemplated 
blessing his son, which was a religious act, 
a solemn appeal to God to remember His 
covenant unto Abraham, it was to be done 
** before the Lord."$ The place might be 
an altar such as was put up by Abraham 
at Hebron, by Isaac at Beer-sheba, or by 
Jacob at Beth-el, where they respectively 
dwelt ; § it might be a separate tent ; and 
a tent actually was set apart by Moses 
outside the camp, before the Tabernacle 

* See Lightioot, vol. i. p. 3. 

t Genesis xxv. 22. X Ibid, xxvii. 7. 

§ Ibid. xiii. 18 ; xxvi. 25 ; xxxv. 6. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 11 

was erected, where every one repaired who 
sought the Lord ;* or it might be a separate 
part of a chamber of the tent : but however 
that was, the expression is a definite one, 
and relates to some appointed quarter to 
which the family resorted for purposes of 
devotion. Accordingly the very same ex- 
pression is used in after-times, when the 
Tabernacle had been set up confessedly as 
the place where the people were to assemble 
for prayer and sacrifice. ei He shall offer 
it of his own voluntary will at the door of 
the Tabernacle of the Congregation before 
the Lord, and he shall kill the bullock be- 
fore the Lord.''f "Three times in the year 
shall all thy males appear before the Lord 
thy God in the place which he shall 
choose. "J Here there can be no question 
as to the meaning of the phrase ; it occurs, 
indeed, some five-and-thirty times in the 

* Exodus xxxiii. 7. f Leviticus i. 3. 

X Deuteronomy xvi. 16. 



12 THE VERACITY OF THE 

four last Books of Moses, and in all as sig- 
nificant of the place set apart for the wor- 
ship of God. I conclude therefore that in 
those passages of Genesis which I have 
quoted, Moses employs the same expres- 
sion in the same sense. 

Such are some of the hints which seem 
to point to places of patriarchal io or ship. 

2. In like manner, and by evidence of 
the same indirect and imperfect kind, I 
gather that there were persons whose busi- 
ness it was to perform the rites of that 
worship — not perhaps their sole business, 
but their appropriate business. Whether 
the first born was by right of birth the 
priest also has been doubted ; at the same 
time it is obvious that this circumstance 
w T ould often, perhaps generally where there 
was no impediment, point him out as the 
fit person to keep alive in his own house- 
hold the fear of that God who alone could 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 13 

make it to prosper. Persons, however, 
invested with the sacerdotal office there 
undoubtedly were ; such was Melchizedeck, 
" the Priest of the Most High God," as he 
is expressly called,* and the functions of 
his ministry he publicly performs towards 
Abraham, blessing him as God's servant, as 
the instrument by which His arm had over- 
thrown the confederate kings, and receiving 
from Abraham a tenth of the spoil, which 
could be nothing but a religious offering, 
and which indeed, as such, is the ground of 
St. Paul's argument for the superiority of 
Christ's priesthood over the Levitical.j" 
Such probably was Jethro " the Priest of 
Midian."J Moreover we find the priests 
expressly mentioned as a body of function- 
aries existing amongst the Israelites even 
before the consecration of Aaron and his 

* Genesis xiv. 18. t Hebrews vii. 9. 

t Exodus ii. 16. 



14 THE VERACITY OF THE 

sons.* And the same are probably alluded 
to in a subsequent chapter under the name 
of " young men of the children of Israel 
which offered burnt-offerings." f Then if 
we read of Patriarchal Priests, so do we of 
Patriarchal " Preachers of Righteousness," 
as in Noah, f So do we of Patriarchal 
Prophets, as in Balaam, as in Job, as in 
Enoch. All these are hints of a Patriarchal 
Church, differing perhaps less in its con- 
struction and in the manner in which God 
was pleased to use it, as the means of 
keeping Himself in remembrance amongst 
men, from the churches which have suc- 
ceeded, than may be at first imagined. 

3. Pursue we the inquiry, and I think a 
hint may be discovered of a peculiar dress 
assigned to the Patriarchal Priest when he 
officiated ; for Jacob, being already pos- 

* Exodus xix. 22. f Exod. xxiv. 5. 

t 2 Peter ii. 5. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 15 

sessed oi the birth-right, and probably in 
this instance of the priesthood with it, 
since Esau by surrendering the birth-right 
became " profane" * goes in to Isaac to re- 
ceive the blessing, a religious act, as I have 
already said, to be done before the Lord. 
Now, on this occasion, Rebekah took 
" goodly raiment " (such is our translation) 
" of her eldest son Esau, which were with 
her in the house, and put them upon Jacob 
her younger son." f Were these the sacer- 
dotal robes of the first-born? It occurred to 
me that they might be so; and on refer- 
ence I find that the Jews themselves so 
interpreted them,J an interpretation which 
has been treated by Dr. Patrick more con- 
temptuously than it deserved to be, especially 
as he quotes, in another place, an opinion 
of the Hebrew doctors, that vestments were 

*• Hebrews xii. 16. f Genesis xxvii. 15. 

% Vide Patrick in loc. 



16 THE VERACITY OF THE 

so inseparable from the priesthood, that 
even Adam, Abel, and Cain did not sacri- 
fice without them ; * for I look upon it as 
a trifle indeed, but still as a trifle which is, 
a component part of the system I am endea- 
vouring to trace out — had it stood alone it 
would have been fruitless perhaps to have 
hazarded a word upon it — as it stands in 
conjunction with so many other indications 
of a Patriarchal Church it has its weight. 
Now I do not say that the Hebrew expres- 
sion | here rendered " raiment " (for of the 
epithet " goodly " I will speak by and by) 
is exclusively confined to the garments of 
a priest ; it is certainly a term of consider- 
able latitude, and is by no means to be so 
restricted : still when the priest's garments 
are to be expressed by any general term 
at all, it is always by the one in ques- 

* See Dr. Patrick on Exod. xxviii. 2. 

t dh:q 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 17 

tion. Yet there is another term in the 
Hebrew/' perhaps of as frequent occurrence, 
and also a comprehensive term ; but whilst 
this latter is constantly applied to the dress 
of other individuals of both sexes, I do not 
find it ever applied to the dress of the 
priests. The distinction and the argument 
will be best illustrated by examples : — Thus 
we read -in Leviticus,f according to our 
version, " the High-priest that is conse- 
crated to put on the garments shall not 
uncover his head, nor rend his clothes." 
The word here translated (C garments " in 
the one clause, and " clothes" in the other, 
is in the Hebrew in both clauses the same 
— is the word in question — is the raiment of 
Esau which Rebekah took ; and in both 
clauses the priests' dress is meant, and no 
other. So, again, what are called \ " the 

* rdto or rhtiv. 

t j — t ; • 

t Chapter xxi. 10. J Exodus xxxv. 19. 



18 THE VERACITY OF THE 

clothes of service," is still the same word, as 
implying Aaron's clothes, or those of his 
sons, and no other. And, again, Moses 
says,* " uncover not your heads, neither 
rend your clothes, lest ■ ye die ; " still the 
word is the same, for he is there speaking 
to Aaron and his sons, and to none other. 
But when he says,t * your clothes are not 
waxed old," the Hebrew word is> no longer 
the same, though the English word is, but 
is the other word of which I spoke,J for 
the clothes of the people are here signified, 
and not of the priests. 

This, therefore, is all that can be main- 
tained, that the term used to express the 
" raiment" which Rebekah brought out for 
Jacob, is the term which would express 
appropriately the dress of the priest, though 
it certainly would not express it exclusively. 

* Leviticus x. 6. t Deuteronomy xxix. 5. 






FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 19 

But, again, the epithet " goodly " (or '*' de- 
sirable"* as the margin renders it more 
closely) annexed to the raiment is still in 
favour of our interpretation, though neither 
is this word, any more than the other, con- 
clusive of the question. Certain, however, 
it is, that though the word translated 
" goodly " is not restricted to sacred things, 
it does so happen that to sacred things it is 
attached in very many instances, if not in 
a majority of instances, where it occurs in 
Holy Writ, Thus the utensils of the Tem- 
ple which Nebuchadnezzar carried away 
are called in the Book of Chronicles f " the 
goodly vessels of the House of the Lord." 
And Isaiah writes, " all our pleasant things 
are laid waste/' J meaning the Temple — 
the word here rendered " pleasant " being 
the same as that in the former passages ren- 

* Ttttom 

t 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 10. J Isaiah lxiv. 11. 



20 TKE VERACITY OF THE 

dered " goodly;" and in the Lamentations* 
we read, " the adversary hath spread out 
his hand upon all our pleasant things," 
where the Temple is again understood, as 
the context proves. In other places it 
occurs in a bad sense, as relating to what 
was held sacred by Heathens only, but still 
what was held sacred — " The oaks which 
ye have desired"']' " all pleasant pictures," % 
objects of idolatry, as the tenour of the 
passage indicates — " their delectable things 
shall not profit,"§ that is, their idols. I may 
add too, that the a-roT^r) of the Septuagint, 
(for this answers to the " raiment " of our 
version,) though not limited to the robe of 
the altar, is the term used in the Greek as 
the appropriate one for the robe of Aaron ; 
and finally, that the care with which this 
vesture had been kept by Rebekah, and the 

* Lamentations i. 10. t Isaiah i. 29. 

I Isaiah ii. 16. § Ibid. xliv. 9. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 21 

perfumes with which it was imbued when 
Jacob wore it, (for Isaac " smelled the smell 
of his raiment,") savour of things pertain- 
ing unto God. * 

But if there were Patriarchal Places for 
worship — if there were Priests to conduct 
the worship — if there were decent Robes 
wherein those priests ministered at the 
worship ; so do I think there were stated 
Seaso?is set apart for it : though here again 
we have nothing but hints to guide us to a 
conclusion. 

4. I confess that the Divine institution 
of the Sabbath, as a day of religious duties, 
seems to me to have been from the begin- 
ning ; and though we have but glimpses of 
such a fact, still to my eye they present 
themselves as parts of that one harmonious 
whole which I am now endeavouring to 
develop and draw out — even of a Patriarchal 



22 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Church, whereof we see scarcely anything 
but by glimpse. 

" And it came to pass that on the sixth 
day they gathered twice as much bread, 
two omers for one man, and all the rulers 
of the congregation came, and told Moses. 
And he said unto them, This is that which 
the Lord hath said, to-morrow is the rest of 
the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Six days 
ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, 
which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be 
none."* And again, in a few verses after, 
" And the Lord said unto Moses, How long 
refuse ye to keep my commandments and 
my laws ? See, for that the Lord hath 
give?i you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth 
you on the sixth day the bread of two 
days." Now the transaction here recorded 
is by some argued to be the first institution 
of the Sabbath. The inference I draw from 

* Exodus xvi. 22. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 23 

it, I confess, is different. I see in it, that 
a Sabbath had already been appointed — 
that the Lord had already given it ; and 
that, in accommodation to that institution 
already understood, he had doubled the 
manna on the sixth day. But even sup- 
posing the Institution of the Sabbath to be 
here formally proclaimed^ or supposing (as 
others would have it, and as the Jews them- 
selves pretend) that it was not now pro- 
mulgated, strictly speaking, but was actually 
one of the two precepts given a little earlier 
at Mar ah,* still it is not uncommon in the 
writings of Moses, nor indeed in other parts 
of Scripture, for an event to be mentioned 
as then occurring for the first time, which 
had in fact occurred, and which had been 
reported to have occurred, long before. 
For instance, Isaac and Abimelech meet, 
and swear to do each other no injury. 
* Exodus xv. 25, and compare Deuteronomy v. 12. 



24 THE VERACITY OF THE 

" And it came to pass the same day, that 
Isaac's servants came and told him con- 
cerning the well which they had digged, 
and said unto him, We have found water ; 
and he called it Shebah, therefore the name 
of the city is Beer-Sheba unto this day."* 
Now who would not say that the name 
was then given to the place by Isaac, and 
for the first time ? Yet it had been un- 
doubtedly given by Abraham long before, 
in commemoration of a similar covenant 
which he had struck with the Abimelech 
of his day. " These seven ewe-lambs," 
said he to that prince, " shalt thou take at 
my hand, that they ma}' be a witness unto 
thee that I have digged this well ; where- 
fore he called the place Beer-Sheba, because 
they sware both of them." f Or, as another 
instance : — " And God appeared unto Jacob 
again when he came out of Padan-Aram, 
* Genesis xxvi. 32. t Ibid. xxi. 31. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 25 

and blessed him : and God said unto him, 
Thy name is Jacob, thy name shall not be 
Called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be 
thy name, and he called his name Israel"* 
Who would not suppose that the name of 
Israel was now given to Jacob for the first 
time ? Yet several chapters before this, 
when Jacob had wrestled with the angel, 
(not at Beth-el, which was the former 
scene, but at Peniel,) we read, that " the 
angel said, What is thy name ? and he said, 
Jacob : and he said, thy name shall be 
called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as a 
prince hast thou power with God, and with 
man, and hast prevailed." f 

Thus again, to add one example more, 
we are told in the Book of Judges,J that 
a certain Jair, a Gileadite, a successor of 
Abimelech in the government of Israel, 

* Genesis xxxv. 10. t Ibid, xxxii. 28. 

% Judges x. 4. 



26 THE VERACITY OF THE 



• 



" had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass- 
colts, and they had thirty cities, which are 
called Havoth-Jair unto this day, which 
are in the land of Gilead." Who would 
not conclude that the cities were then 
called by this name for the first time, 
and that this Jair was the person from 
whom they derived it ? Yet we read in 
the Book of Numbers,* that another Jair, 
who lived nearly three hundred years ear- 
lier, u went and took the small towns of 
Gilead" (apparently these very same), " and 
called them Havoth-Jair." So that the 
name had been given nearly three centuries 
already. Why, then,, should it be thought 
strange that the institution of the Sabbath 
should be mentioned as if for the first time 
in the 16th chapter of Exodus, and yet 
that it should have been in fact founded at 
the creation of the world, as the language 

* Numbers xxxii. 41. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 27 

of the 2nd chapter of Genesis,* taken in its 
obvious meaning, implies ; and as St. Paul's 
argument in the 4th chapter of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews (I think) requires it to 
have been ? — Nor is such a case without a 
parallel. " Moses gave unto you circum- 
cision," says our Lord ; yet there is added, 
" not because it is of Moses, but of the 
Fathers;"^ — and the like may be said of the 
Sabbath ; that Moses gave it, and yet that 
it was of the Fathers. And surely such 
observance of the Sabbath from the begin- 
ning is in accordance with many hints which 
are conveyed to us of some distinction or 
other belonging to that day from the begin- 
ning — as when Noah sends forth the dove 
three times successively at intervals of seven 
days ; as when Laban invites Jacob to fulfil 
his week, after the marriage of Leah, the 
nuptial festivities being probably terminated 
* Genesis ii. 3. t John vii. 22. 

c 2 



28 THE VERACITY OF THE 

by the arrival of the Sabbath ;* these and 
other hints of the same kind being, as ap- 
pears to me, pregnant with meaning, and 
intended to be so, in a history, of the rapid 
and desultory nature of that of Moses. 
Neither is there much difficulty in the pas- 
sage of Ezekiel,t with which those, who 
maintain the Sabbath to have been for the 
first time enjoined in the wilderness, sup- 
port themselves. " Wherefore," says that 
Prophet, " I caused them to go forth out 
of the land of Egypt, and brought them 
into the wilderness — and I gave them my 
statutes, and showed them my judgments, 
which if a man do, he shall even live in 
them — moreover also I gave them my Sab- 
baths." Here, then, it is alleged, Ezekiel 
affirms, or seems to affirm, that the Al- 
mighty gave the Israelites his Sabbaths 
when he was leading them out of Egypt, 
* Genesis xxix. 27. f Ezekiel xx. 10, 11, 12. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 29 

and that He had not given them till then. 
Yet His statutes and judgments are also 
spoken of as given at the same time, 
whereas very many of those had surely 
been given long before. It would be very 
untrue to assert, that, until the Israelites 
were led forth from Egypt, no statutes or 
judgments of the same kind had been ever 
given : it was in the wilderness that the 
law respecting clean and unclean beasts 
was promulgated, yet that law had cer- 
tainly been published long before ; * and 
the same may be said of many others, 
which I will not enumerate here, because 
I shall have occasion to do it by and by. 
My argument, then, is briefly this : — that 
as Ezekiel speaks of statutes and judgments 
given to the Israelites in the wilderness, 
some of which were certainly old statutes 
and judgments repeated and enforced, so 
* Genesis vii. 2. 



30 THE VERACITY OF THE 

when he says that the Sabbaths were given 
to the Israelites in the wilderness, he can- 
not be fairly accounted to assert that the 
Sabbaths had never been given till then. 
The fact, indeed, probably was, that they 
had been neglected and half forgotten 
during the long bondage in Egypt, (slavery 
being unfavourable to morals,) and that the 
observance of them was re-asserted and 
renewed at the time of the promulgation 
of the Law in the Desert. In this sense, 
therefore, the Prophet might well declare, 
that on that occasion God gave the Israel- 
ites his Sabbaths. It is true, that in addi- 
tion to the motive for the observance of 
the Sabbath, (hinted in the 2nd chapter of 
Genesis, and more fully expressed in the 
20th of Exodus,) which is of universal 
obligation, other motives were urged upon 
the Israelites specially applicable to them — 
as that tc the day should be a sign between 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 31 

God and them " * — as that it should be a 
remembrance of their having been made 
to rest from the yoke of the Egyptians.! 
Yet such supplementary sanctions to the 
performance of a duty (however well 
adapted to secure the obedience of the 
Israelites) are quite consistent with a pre- 
vious command addressed to all, and upon 
a principle binding on all. 

I have now attempted to show, but very 
briefly, lest otherwise the scope of my ar- 
gument should be lost sight of, that there 
were among the Patriarchs places set apart 
for worship — persons to officiate — a decent 
ceremonial — an appointed season for holy 
things : I will now suggest, in very few 
words, (still gathering my information from 
such hints as the Book of Genesis supplies 
from time to time,) something of the duties 
and doctrines which were taught in that 

* Exodus xxxi. 17. -j- Deuteronomy v. 1 5. 



32 THE VERACITY OF THE 

ancient Church ; and here, I think, it will 
appear, that the Law and the Prophets of 
the next Dispensation had their prototypes 
in that of the Patriarchs — that the Second 
Temple was greater indeed in glory than 
the First, but was nevertheless built up 
out of the First — the one body " not un- 
clothed," but the other rather " clothed 
upon." 

5. In this primitive Church, then, the 
distinction of clean and unclean is already 
known, and known as much in detail as 
under the Levitical Law, every animal 
being arranged by Noah in one class or 
the other.* The blood, which is the life of 
the animal, is already withheld as food.f 
Murder is already denounced as demanding 
death for its punishment. J Adultery is 
already forbidden, as we learn from the 

* Genesis vii. 2. t Ibid. ix. 4. 

X Ibid. ix. 6. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 33 

cases of Pharaoh and Abimelech.* Oaths 
are already binding.f Fornication is al- 
ready condemned, as in the case of She- 
chem, who is said " to have wrought folly 
in Israel, which thing ought not to be 
done." J Marriage with the uncircumcised 
or idolater is already prohibited. § Puri- 
fications are already enjoined those who 
approach a holy place, for Jacob bids his 
people " be clean and change their gar- 
ments" before they present themselves at 
Bethel. || The brother is already com- 
manded to marry the brother's widow, and 
to raise up seed unto his brother.^" The 
daughter of the Priest (if Judah, as the 
head of his own family, may be considered 
in that character) is already to be brought 

* Genesis xii. 18 ; xxvi. 10. f Ibid. xxvi. 28. 
t Ibid, xxxiv. 7. 

§ Ibid, xxxiv. 14, and compare Exodus xxxiv. 16. 
]| Ibid. xxxv. 2. % Ibid, xxxviii. 8. 

c 3 



34 THE VERACITY OF THE 

forth and burned, if she played the harlot. * 
These laws, afterwards incorporated in the 
Levitical, are here brought together and 
reviewed at a glance; but as they occur 
in the Book of Genesis, be it remembered 
they drop out incidentally, one by one, as 
the course of the narrative happens to turn 
them up. They are therefore to be reck- 
oned fragments of a more full and complete 
code, which was the groundwork in all 
probability of the Levitical code itself; for 
it is difficult to suppose that where there 
were these, there were not others like to 
them. 

But this is not all — the Patriarchs had 
their sacrifices, that great and leading rite 
of the Church of Aaron. Their sacrifices, 
how far regulated in their details by the 
injunctions of God himself, we cannot de- 
termine ; yet it is impossible to read in the 

* Genesis xxxviii. 24 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 35 

15th chapter of Genesis the particulars of 
Abraham's offering of the heifer, the goat, 
the ram, the turtle-dove, and the pigeon — 
their ages, their sex, the circumspection 
with which he dissects and disposes them — 
whether all this be done in act or in vision, 
without feeling assured that very minute 
directions upon all these points were vouch- 
safed to the Patriarchal Church. 

Then as she had her sacrifices, so had 
she her types — types which in number 
scarcely yield to those of the Levitical Law, 
in precision and interest perhaps exceed 
them. For we meet with them in the 
names and fortunes of individuals whom 
the Almighty Disposer of events, without 
doing violence to the natural order of 
things, exhibits as pages of a living book 
in which the Promise is to be read — as 
characters expressing His counsels and 
covenants writ by His own finger — as ac- 



36 THE VERACITY OF THE 

tors, whereby he holds up to a world, not 
yet prepared for less gross and sensible 
impressions, scenes to come. 

It would lead me far beyond the limits 
of my argument were I to touch upon the 
multitude of instances, which will crowd, 
however, I doubt not, upon the minds of 
my readers. I might tell of Adam, whom 
St. Paul himself calls " the figure" or type 
" of Him that was to come."* I might 
tell of the sacrifice of Isaac (though not 
altogether after him whose vision upon this 
subject, always bright though often base- 
less, would alone have immortalized his 
name) — of that Isaac whose birth was pre- 
ceded by an annunciation to his motherf — 
whose conception was miraculous J — who 
was named of the angel before he was 

* Romans v. 24. 1 Corinthians xv. 45. 

t Genesis xviii. 10. J Ibid, xviii. 14. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 37 

conceived in the womb, # and Joy, or 
Laughter, or Rejoicing was that name f — 
who was, in its primary sense, the seed in 
which all the nations of the earth were to 
be blessed J — whose projected death was a 
rehearsal (as it were), almost two thousand 
years beforehand, of the great offering of 
all — the very mountain, Moriah, not chosen 
by chance, not chosen for convenience, for 
it was three days' journey from Abraham's 
dwelling-place, but no doubt appointed of 
God as the future scene of a Saviour's 
passion too § — a son, an only son, the vic- 
tim — the very instruments of the oblation, 
the wood, not carried by the young men, 
not carried by the ass which they had 
brought with them, but laid on the shoul- 
ders of him who was to die, as the cross 

* Genesis xvii. 19. t Ibid. xxi. 6. 

§ Ibid. xxii. 18. 

% Ibid. xxii. 2. 2 Chronicles iii. 1. 



38 THE VERACITY OF THE 

was borne up that same ascent of Him, 
who, in the fulness of time, was destined 
to expire upon it. 

But indeed I see the Promise all Genesis 
through, so that our Lord might well begin 
with Moses in expounding the things con- 
cerning Himself;* and well might Philip 
say, " We have found Him of whom Moses 
in the Law did write." f I see the Promise 
all Genesis through ; and if I have con- 
structed a rude and imperfect Temple of 
Patriarchal Worship out of the fragments 
which offer themselves to our hands in that 
history, the Messiah to come is the spirit 
that must fill that Temple with His all- 
pervading presence — none other than He 
must be the Shekinah of the Tabernacle 
we have reared. For I confess myself 
wholly at a loss to explain the nature of 
that Book on any other principle, or to 
* Luke xxiv. 27. f John i. 45. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 39 

unlock its mysteries by any other key. 
Couple it with this consideration, and I see 
the scheme of Revelation, like the physical 
scheme, proceeding with beautiful unifor- 
mity — an unity of plan connecting (as it 
has been well said by Paley) the chicken 
roosting upon its perch with the spheres 
revolving in the firmament; and an unity 
of plan connecting in like manner the 
meanest accidents of a household with the 
most illustrious visions of a prophet. 

Abstracted from this consideration, I see 
in it details of actions, some trifling, some 
even offensive, pursued at a length (when 
compared with the whole) singularly dis- 
proportionate * while things which the an- 
gels would desire to look into are passed 
over and forgotten. But this principle 
once admitted, and all is consecrated — all 
assumes a new aspect — trifles, that seem 
at first not bigger than a man's hand, 



40 THE VERACITY OF THE 

occupy the heavens ; and wherefore Sarah 
laughed, for instance, at the prospect of a 
son, and wherefore that laugh was rendered 
immortal in his name, and wherefore the 
sacred historian dwells on a matter so 
trivial, whilst the world and its vast con- 
cerns were lying at his feet, I can fully 
understand. For then I see the hand of 
God shaping everything to his own- ends, 
and in an event thus casual, thus easy, thus 
unimportant, telling forth his mighty design 
of Salvation to the world, and working it 
up into the web of his noble prospective 
counsels,* I see that nothing is great or 
little before Him who can bend to his 
purposes whatever He willeth, and convert 
the light-hearted and thoughtless mockery 
of an aged woman into an instrument of 
his glory, effectual as the tongue of the 

* Genesis xxi. 6. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 41 

seer which He touched with living coals 
from the altar. 

Bearing this master-key in my hand, I 
can interpret the scenes of domestic mirth, 
of domestic stratagem, or of domestic wick- 
edness with which the History of Moses 
abounds. The Seed of the Woman, that 
was to bruise the Serpent's head,* however 
indistinctly understood, (and probably it 
was understood very indistinctly,) was the 
one thing longed for in the families of old, 
was " the desire of all nations," as the Pro- 
phet Haggai expressly calls it;f and pro- 
vided they could accomplish this desire, 
they (like others when urged by an over- 
powering motive) were often reckless of 
the means, and rushed upon deeds which 
they could not defend. Then did the wife 
forget her jealousy, and provoke, instead 
of resenting the faithlessness of her hus- 
* Genesis iii. 15. t Haggai ii. 7. 



42 THE VERACITY OF THE 

band;* then did the mother forget a mo- 
ther's part, and teach her own child trea- 
chery and deceit ;f then did daughters turn 
the instincts of nature backward, and deli- 
berately work their own and their father's 
shame ; J then did the daughter-in-law veil 
her face, and court the incestuous bed ; § 
and to be childless was to be a by-word ; || 
and to refuse to raise up seed to a brother 
was to be spit upon ;^[ and the prospect of 
the Promise, like the fulfilment of it, did 
not send peace into families, but a sword, 
and three were set against two, and two 
against three;** and the elder, who would 
be promoted unto honour, was set against 

* Genesis xvi. 2 ; xxx. 3 ; xxx. 9. 

t Ibid. xxv. 23 ; xxvii. 13. 

I Ibid. xix. 31. § Ibid, xxxviii. 14. 

|| Ibid. xvi. 5 ; xxx. 1. 

H Ibid, xxxviii. 26. Deuteronomy xxv. 9. 

** Genesis xxvii. 41. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 43 

the younger whom God would promote,* 
and national differences were engendered 
by it, as individuals grew into nations ;f 
and even the foulest of idolatries may be 
traced, perhaps, to this hallowed source; 
for the corruption of the best is the worst 
corruption of all .J 

It is upon this principle of interpretation, 
and I know not upon what other so well, 
that we may put to silence the ignorance of 
foolish men, who have made those parts of 
the Mosaic History a stumbHng-block to 
many, which, if rightly understood, are the 
very testimony of the covenant ; and a prin- 
ciple, which is thus extensive in its appli- 
cation and successful in its results, which 
explains so much that is difficult, and 
answers so much that is objected against, 

* Genesis iv. 5 ; xxvii. 41. 
t Ibid. xix. 37 ; xxvi. 35. 
J Numbers xxv. 1,2,3. 



44 THE VERACITY OF THE 

has, from this circumstance alone, strong 
presumption in its favour, strong claims 
upon our sober regard.* 

Such is the structure that appears to me 
to unfold itself, if we do but bring together 
the scattered materials of which it is com- 
posed. The place of worship — the priest to 
minister — the sacerdotal dress — the ap- 
pointed seasons for holy things — preachers 
— prophets — a code of laws — sacrifices — 
types — and a Messiah in prospect, as a lead- 
ing feature of the whole scheme, as he now 
is in retrospect of a scheme which has 
succeeded it. Complete the building is 
not ; but still there is symmetry in its com- 
ponent parts, and unity in its whole. Yet 
Moses was certainly not contemplating any 
description of a Patriarchal Church. He 

* See Allix, " Reflections on the Books of Holy- 
Scripture," where this interesting subject is most inge- 
niously pursued. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 45 

had other matters in his thoughts : he was 
the mediator, not of this system, but of 
another, which he was now to set forth in 
all its details, even of the Levitical. Hints, 
however, of a former dispensation he does 
inadvertently let fall, and these we find, on 
collecting and comparing them, to be, as 
far as they go, harmonious. 

Upon this general view of the Book of 
Genesis, then, do I found my first proof of 
consistency without design in the writings 
of Moses, and my first argument for their 
veracity — for such consistency is too uni- 
form to be accidental, and too unobtrusive 
to have been studied. Such a view is, 
doubtless, important as far as regards the 
doctrines of Scripture, I, however, only- 
urge it as far as regards the evidences. I 
shall now enter more into detail, and bring 
forward such specific coincidences amongst 
independent passages of the Mosaic writ- 



46 THE VERACITY OF THE 

ings, as tend to prove that in them we have 
the Word of Truth, that in them we may 
put our trust with faith unfeigned. 

II. 

In the 18th chapter of Genesis we find 
recorded a very singular conversation which 
Abraham is reported to have held with a 
superior Being, there called the Lord. It 
pleased God on this occasion to commu- 
nicate to the Father of the Faithful his 
intention to destroy forthwith the cities of 
Sodom and Gomorrah, of which the cry 
was great, and the sin very grievous. Now 
the manner in which Abraham is said to 
have received the sad tidings is remarkable. 
He does not bow to the high behest in 
helpless acquiescence— the Lord do what 
seemeth good in his sight — but with feel- 
ings at once excited to the uttermost, he 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 47 

pleads for the guilty city, he implores the 
Lord not to slay the righteous with the 
ivicked ; and when he feels himself per- 
mitted to speak with all boldness, he first, 
entreats that fifty good men may purchase 
the city's safety, and, still encouraged by 
the success of a series of petitions, he rises 
in his merciful demands, till at last it is 
promised that even if ten should be found 
in it, it should not be destroyed for ten's 
sake. ^ 

Now was there no motive beyond that 
of general humanity which urged Abraham 
to entreaties so importunate, so reiterated ? 
None is named — perhaps such general 
motive will be thought enough — I do not 
say that it was not; yet I think we may 
discover a special and appropriate one, 
which was likely to act upon the mind of 
Abraham with still greater effect, though 



48 THE VERACITY OF THE 

we are left entirely to detect it for our- 
selves. For may we not imagine, that no 
sooner was the intelligence sounded in 
Abraham's ears, than he called to mind that 
Lot his nepkeWj with all his family, was 
dwelling in this accursed town,* and that 
this consideration both prompted and quick- 
ened his prayer? For while he thus made 
his supplication for Sodom, I do not read 
that Gomorrah and the other cities of the 
plain f shared his intercession, though they 
stood in the same need of it — and why not ? 
except that in them he had not the same 
deep interest. It may be argued too, and 
without any undue refinement, that in his 
repeated reduction of the number which 
was to save the place, he was governed by 
the hope that the single family of Lot (for 
he had sons-in-law who had married his 

* Genesis xiv. 12. f Ibid. xix. 28. Jude 7. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 49 

daughters, and daughters unmarried, and 
servants,) would in itself have supplied so 
many individuals at least as would fulfil 
the last condition — ten righteous persons 
who might turn away the wrath of God, 
nor suffer his whole displeasure to arise. 

Surely nothing could be more natural 
than that anxiety for the welfare of rela- 
tives so near to him should be felt by 
Abraham — nothing more natural than that 
he should make an effort for their escape, 
as he had done on a former occasion at his 
own risk, when he rescued this very Lot 
from the kings who had taken him captive 
— nothing more natural than that his family 
feelings should discover themselves in the 
earnestness of his entreaties ; yet we have 
to collect all this for ourselves. The whole 
chapter might be read without our gather- 
ing from it a single hint that he had any 

D 



50 THE VERACITY OF THE 

relative within ten days' journey of the 
place. All we know is, that Abraham 
entreated for it with great passion — that he 
entreated for no other place, though others 
were in the same peril — that he endea- 
voured to obtain such terms as seemed 
likely to be fulfilled if a single righteous 
family could be found there. And then 
we know, from what is elsewhere dis- 
closed, that the family of Lot did actu- 
ally dwell there at that time ; a family 
that Abraham mio'ht well have reckoned 
on being more prolific in virtue than it 
proved. 

Surely, then, a coincidence between the 
zeal of the uncle and the danger of the 
brothers son is here detailed, though it is 
not expressed ; and so utterly undesigned 
is this coincidence, that the history might 
be read many times over, and this feature 






FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 51 

of truth in it never happen to present it- 
self. 

And here let me observe — an observa- 
tion which will be very often forced upon 
our notice in the prosecution of this argu- 
ment — that this sign of truth (whatever 
may be the importance attached to it) 
offers itself in the midst of an incident in. 
a great measure miraculous ; — and though 
it cannot be said that such indications of 
veracity in the natural parts of a story 
prove those parts of it to be true which 
are supernatural, yet, where the natural 
and supernatural are in close combination, 
the truth of the former must at least be 
thought to add to the credibility of the 
latter; and they who are disposed to be- 
lieve, from the coincidence in question, 
that the petition of Abraham in behalf 
of Sodom was a real petition, as it is; 

D 2 



52 THE VERACITY" OF THE 

described by Moses, and no fiction, will 
have some difficulty in separating it from 
the miraculous circumstances connected 
with it — the visit of the angel — the pro- 
phetic information he conveyed — and the 
terrible vengeance with which his red right 
hand was proceeding to smite that adul- 
terous and sinful generation. 



III. 



The 24th chapter of Genesis contains a 
very beautiful and primitive picture of 
Eastern manners, in the mission of Abra- 
ham's trusty servant to Mesopotamia, to 
procure a wife for Isaac from the daughters 
of that branch of the Patriarch's family 
which continued to dwell in Haran. He 
came nigh to the city of Nahor — it was 
the hour when the people were going to 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 53 

draw water. He entreated God to give 
him a token whereby he might know which 
of the damsels of the place he had ap- 
pointed to Isaac for a wife. " And it 
came to pass that behold Rebekah came 
out, who was born to Bethuel, son of 
Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's bro- 
ther, with her pitcher upon her shoulder" — 
'" Drink, my Lord," was her greeting, <c and 
I will draw water for thy camels also." 
This was the simple token which the ser- 
vant had sought at the hands of God ; 
and accordingly he proceeds to impart his 
commission to herself and her friends. 

To read is to believe this story. But 
the point in it to which I beg the attention 
of my readers is this, that Rebekah is said 
to be " the daughter of .Bethuel, the son of 
Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor" It 
appears, therefore, that the grand-daughter 
of Abraham's brother is to be the wife of 



54 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Abraham's son — i.e. that a person of the 
third generation on Nahor's side is found 
of suitable years for one of the second gene- 
ration on Abraham's side. Now what could 
harmonize more remarkably with a fact 
elsewhere asserted, though here not even 
touched upon, that Sarah, the wife of 
Abraham, was for a long time barren, and 
had no child till she was stricken in years?* 
Thus it was that a generation on Abraham's 
side was lost, and the grandchildren of his 
brother in Haran were the co-evals of his 
own child in Canaan. I must say that this 
trifling instance of minute consistency gives 
me very great confidence in the veracity of 
the historian. It is an incidental point in 
the narrative — most easily overlooked — I 
am free to confess never observed by my- 
self till I examined the Pentateuch with 
a view to this species of internal evidence. 
* Genesis xviii. 12. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 55 

It is a point on which he might have 
spoken differently, and yet not have ex- 
cited the smallest suspicion that he was 
speaking inaccurately. Suppose he had 
said that Abraham's son had taken for a 
wife the daughter of Nahor, instead of the 
grand-daughter, who would have seen in 
this any thing improbable ? and to a mere 
inventor would not that alliance have been 
much the more likely to suggest itself ? 

Now here, again, the ordinary and ex- 
traordinary are so closely united, that it is 
extremely difficult indeed to put them 
asunder. If, then, the ordinary circum- 
stances of the narrative have the impress 
of truth, the extraordinary have a very 
valid right to challenge our serious consi- 
deration too. If the coincidence almost 
establishes this as a certain fact, which 
I think it does, that Sarah did not bear 



56 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Isaac while she was young, agreeably to 
what Moses affirms ; is it not probable 
that the same historian is telling the truth 
when he says, that Isaac was born when 
Sarah was too old to bear him at all ex- 
cept by miracle ? — when he says, that the 
Lord announced his future birth, and 
ushered him into the world by giving him 
a name foretelling the joy he should be to 
the nations ; changing the names of both 
his parents with a prophetic reference to 
the high destinies this son was appointed 
to fulfil? 

Indeed the more attentively and scru- 
pulously we examine the Scriptures, the 
more shall we be (in my opinion) con- 
vinced, that the natural and supernatural 
events recorded in them must stand or fall 
together. The spirit of miracles possesses 
the entire body of the Bible, and cannot 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 57 

be cast out without rending in pieces the 
whole frame of the history itself, merely 
considered as a history. 

IV. 

There is another indication of truth in 
this same portion of patriarchal story. It 
is this — The consistent insignificance of 
Bethuel in this whole affair. Yet he was 
alive, and as the father of Rebekah was 
likely, it might, have been thought, to have 
been a conspicuous person in this contract 
of his daughter's marriage. For there was 
nothing in the custom of the country to 
warrant the apparent indifference in the 
party most nearly concerned, which - we 
observe \ in Bethuel. Laban was of the 
same country and placed in circumstances 
somewhat similar ; he too had to dispose of 
a daughter in marriage, and that daughter 

d 3 



58 THE VERACITY OF THE 

also, like Rebekah, had brothers;* yet in 
this case the terms of the contract were 
stipulated, as was reasonable, by the father 
alone ; he was the active person through- 
out. But mark the difference in the in- 
stance of Bethuel — whether he was inca- 
pable from years or imbecility to manage 
his own affairs, it is of course impossible 
to say, but something of this kind seems 
to be implied in all that relates to him. 
Thus, when Abraham's servant meets with 
Rebekah at the well, he inquires of her, 
" Whose daughter art thou ? tell me, I pray 
thee, is there room in thy father s house 
for us to lodge in?"f She answers, that 
she is the daughter of Bethuel, and that 
there is room ; and when he thereupon 
declared who he was and whence he came, 
" the damsel ran and told them of her 

* Genesis xxxi. 1. t Ibid. xxiv. 23. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 59 

mother s house " (not of her fathers house, 
as Rachel did when Jacob introduced him- 
self*) " these things." This might be ac- 
cident ; but " Rebekah had a brother," the 
history continues, and " his name was La- 
ban, and Ltaban ran out unto the man " 
and invited him in.f Still we have no 
mention of Bethuel. The servant now 
explains the nature of his errand, and in 
this instance it is said, that Laban and 
Bethuel answered ;J Bethuel being here 
in this passage, which constitutes the sole 
proof of his being alive, coupled with his 
son as the spokesman. It is agreed that 
she shall go with the man, and he now 
makes his presents, but to whom ? " Jewels 
of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, 
he gave to Rebekah." He also gave, we 

* Genesis xxix. 12. f Ibid. xxiv. 29. 

1 Ibid. xxiv. 50. 



60 THE VERACITY OF THE 

are told, " to her brother and to her mother 
precious things,"* but not it seems to her 
father; still Bethuel is overlooked, and he 
alone. It is proposed that she shall tarry 
a few days before she departs. And by 
whom is this proposal made ? Not by her 
father, the most natural person surely to 
have been the principal throughout this 
whole affair, but " by her brother and her 
mother "\ In the next generation, when 
Jacob, the fruit of this marriage, flies to 
his mother's country at the counsel of Re- 
bekah, to hide himself from the anger of 
Esau, and to procure for himself a wife, 
and when he comes to Haran and inquires 
of the shepherds after his kindred in that 
place, how does he express himself: " Know 
ye," says he, " Laban the son of Nahor"% 

* Genesis xxiv. 53. f Ibid. xxiv. 55. 

| Ibid. xxix. 5. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 61 

This is more marked than even the former 
instances, for Laban was the son of Bethuel, 
and only the grandson of Nahor ; yet still 
we see Bethuel is passed over as a person 
of no note in his own family, and Laban, 
his own child, designated by the title of his 
grandfather, instead of his father. 

This is consistent — and the consistency 
is too much of one piece throughout, and 
marked by too many particulars, to be ac- 
cidental. It is the consistency of a man 
who knew more about Bethuel than we do, 
or than he happened to let drop from his 
pen. It is of a kind, perhaps, the most 
satisfactory of all for the purpose I use it, 
because the least liable to suspicion of all. 
The uniformity of expressive silence — re- 
peated omissions that have a meaning— no 
agreement in a positive fact, for nothing is 
asserted ; yet a presumption of the fact 



62 THE VERACITY OF THE 

conveyed by mere negative evidence. It 
is like the death of Joseph in the New 
Testament, which none of the Evangelists 
affirm to have taken place before the Cru- 
cifixion, though all imply it. This kind 
of consistency I look upon as beyond the 
reach of the most subtle contriver in the 
world. 



On the return of this servant of Abraham, 
his embassy fulfilled, and Rebekah in his 
company, he discovers Isaac at a distance, 
who was gone out (as our translation has 
it) " to meditate j or (as the margin has it) 
to fray in the field at eventide."* 

Now in this subordinate incident in the 
narrative there are marks of truth, (very 

* Genesis xxiv. 63, rft&> W& NtfTl 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 63 

slight indeed it niay be,) but still, I think, 
if not obvious, not difficult to be perceived 
and not unworthy to be mentioned. Isaac 
went out to meditate or to pray — but the 
Hebrew word does not relate to religious 
meditation exclusively, still less exclusively 
to direct prayer. Neither does the cor- 
responding expression in the Septuagint 
(aSoXeo-^<rai) convey either of these senses 
exclusively, the latter of the two perhaps 
not at all. The leading idea suggested 
seems to be an anxious, a reverential, a 
painful, a depressed state of mind — <f out 
of the abundance of my complaint " (or me- 
dilation, for the word is the same here, only 
in the form of a substantive,) " out of the 
abundance of my meditation and grief have 
I spoken," are the words of Hannah to 
Eli. # " Who hath woe, who hath sorrow, 
who hath contentions, who hath babbling" 

* 1 Samuel i. 16. 



64 THE VERACITY OF THE 

(the word is here still the same, and evi- 
dently might be rendered with more pro- 
priety melancholy,) " who hath wounds 
without cause, who hath redness of eyes?'* * 
Isaac therefore went out into the field not 
directly to pray, but to give ease to a 
wounded spirit in solitude. Now the occa- 
sion of this his trouble of mind is not 
pointed out, and the passage indeed has 
been usually explained without any refer- 
ence to such a feeling, and merely as an 
instance of religious contemplation in Isaac 
worthy of imitation by all. But one of the 
last things that is recorded to have hap- 
pened before the servant went to Haran, 
whence he was now returning, is the death 
and burial of Sarah, no doubt a tender 
mother (as she proved herself a jealous 
one) to the child of her old age and her 
only child. What more likely than that 
* Proverbs xxiii. 29. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 65 

her loss was the subject of Isaac's mournful 
meditation on this occasion ! But this 
conjecture is reduced almost to certainty 
by a few words incidentally dropped at the 
end of the chapter; for having lifted up his 
eyes and beheld the camels coming, and the 
servant, and the maiden, Isaac " brought 
her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took 
Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he 
loved her, and was comforted after his mo- 
thers death." * 

The agreement of this latter incident 
with what had gone before is not set forth 
in our version, and a scene of very touch- 
ing and picturesque beauty impaired, if not 
destroyed. 

* Genesis xxiv. 69. 



66 THE VERACITY OF THE 

VI. 

We have now to contemplate Isaac in a 
different scene, and to remove with him 
(after the fashion of this earthly pilgrim- 
age) from an occasion of mirth to one of 
mourning. 

Being now grown old, as he says, and 
" not knowing the day of his death" he 
prepares to bless his first-born son, " before 
he dies." # So spake the Patriarch. This 
looks very like one of the last acts of a life 
which time and natural decay had brought 
near its close ; yet it is certain that Isaac 
continued to live a great many years after 
this, nay, that probably a fourth part of his 
whole life yet remained to him — for he was 
still alive when Jacob returned from Meso- 
potamia ; when even many of Jacob's sons 

* Genesis xxvii. 2, 4. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 67 

were grown up to manhood who were as 
yet in the loins of their father ; * and even 
after that Patriarch had repeatedly migrated 
from dwelling-place to dwelling-place in 
the land of Canaan. For " Jacob/' we read 
when all these other events had been re- 
lated in their order, l< came unto Isaac his 
father, unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, 
which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac 
sojourned." f 

How then is this seeming discrepancy to 
be got over? I mean the discrepancy be- 
tween Isaac's anxiety to bless his son before 
he died, and the fact of his being found 
alive perhaps forty or fifty years after- 
wards ? My answer is this — that it was 
probably at a moment of dangerous sickness 
when he bethought himself of imparting 
the blessing — and I feel my conjecture sup- 

* Genesis xxxiv. 5. Ibid. xxxv. 27. 



€8 THE VERACITV OF THE 

ported by the following minute coincidences. 
That Isaac was then desirous to have 
" savoury meat such as he loved," as though 
he- loathed his ordinary food; that Jacob 
bade him " arise and sit that he might eat 
of his venison," as though he was at the 
time stretched upon his bed ; that he 
" trembled very exceedingly" when Esau 
came in and he was apprised of his mis- 
take, as though he was very weak ; that the 
words of Esau, when he said in his heart 
" the days of mourning for my father are -at 
hand," are as though he was thought sick 
unto death ; and that those of Rebekah, 
when she said unto Jacob (i should I be 
deprived of you both in one day," are as 
though she supposed the time of her widow- 
hood to be near. 

I will add that the prolongation of Isaac's 
life unexpectedly (as it should seem) may 
have had its influence in the continued pro- 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 69 

tection of Jacob from Esau's anofer, the 
latter, even in the first burst of his passion, 
retaining that reverence for his father which 
determined him to put off the execution 
of his evil purposes against Jacob till he 
should be no more. And this affection 
seems to have been felt by him to the last ; 
for wild and wandering as was his life, the 
sword or the bow ever in his hand, we 
nevertheless find him anxious to do honour 
to his father's grave, and assisting Jacob at 
the burial.* The filial feelings, therefore, 
which had stayed his hand at first, were 
still tending to soothe him during Jacob's 
absence, and to propitiate him on Jacob's 
return ; for the days of mourning for his 
father were still not come. 

* Genesis xxxv. 29. 



'O 



70 THE VERACITY OF THE 

VII. 

My next coincidence may not be thought 
in itself so convincing as some others ; yet, 
as it at once furnishes an argument for the 
truth of Genesis and an answer to an ob- 
jection, I will not pass it over. When 
Jacob is about to remove with his family 
to Beth-el, a place already consecrated in 
his memory by the vision of angels, and 
thenceforward to be distinguished by an 
altar to his God, he gives the following 
extraordinary command to his household 
and all that are with him : " Put away the 
strange gods that are among you, and be 
clean, and change your garments ;"* or, as 
it might be translated with perhaps more 
closeness, " the gods of the stranger" Had 
Jacob, then, hitherto tolerated the worship 

* Genesis xxxv. 2. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 71 

of idols among his own attendants? Had 
he connived so long at a defection from the 
God of his fathers, even whilst he was 
befriended by Him, whilst he was living 
under His special protection, whilst he was 
in frequent communication with Him ? This 
is hard to be believed ; indeed it would 
have seemed incredible altogether, had it 
not been remembered that Rachel had 
Images which she stole from her father 
Laban, and which he at least considered as 
his household gods. Those images, how- 
ever, might be taken by Rachel as valu- 
ables — silver or gold perhaps, a lair prize 
as she might think, serving to balance the 
portion which Laban had withheld from her, 
and the money which he had devoured. 
That she used them herself as idols does 
not appear, but rather the contrary— and 
that Jacob was perfectly unconscious of 
their being at all in his camp, whether as 



72 THE VERACITY OF THE 

objects of worship or as objects of value, is 
evident from his giving Laban free leave 
to put to death the party on whom they 
should be found.* He therefore was not 
an idolator himself; nor, as far as we know, 
did he wink at idolatry in those about him. 
"Whence then this command, issued to his 
attendants on their approach to Beth-el, 
that holy ground, " to put away the strange 
gods that were amongst them, and to make, 
themselves clean ?" 

Let us only refer to an event of a former 
chapter,f and all is plain. The sons of 
Jacob had been just destroying the city of 
the Shechemites — they had slain the males, 
but " all their wealth, and all their little 
ones, and their wives took they captive, 
and spoiled all that "was in the house. " 
These captives, then, so lately added to 

* Genesis xxxi. 32. t Ibid, xxxiv. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 73 

the company of Jacob, were in all proba- 
bility the strangers alluded to, and the 
idols in their possession the Gods of the 
strangers, which accordingly the Patriarch 
required them to put away forthwith be- 
fore Beth-el was approached. Moreover, 
it may be observed that the terms of the 
command extend to " all that were with 
him,' which may well have respect to the 
recent augmentation of his numbers, by the 
addition of the Shechemite prisoners; and 
the further injunction, that not only the 
idols were to be put away, but that all 
were to be clean and change their garments, 
may have a like respect to the recent 
slaughter of that people, whereby all who 
were concerned in it were polluted. 

Yet surely nothing can be more inci- 
dental than the connexion between the 
sacking of the city and the subsequent 



74 THE VERACITY OF THE 

command to put the idols of the stranger 
away- — though nothing can be more na- 
tural and satisfactory than that connexion 
when it is once perceived. Indeed so little 
solicitous is Moses to point out these two 
events as cause and consequence, that he 
has left himself open to misconstruction by 
the very unguarded and artless manner in 
which he expresses himself, and has even 
placed the character of Jacob, as an exclu- 
sive worshipper of the true God, uninten- 
tionally in jeopardy. 

VIII. 

In the character of Jacob I see an indivi- 
duality which marks it to belong to real 
life ; and this is my next argument for the 
veracity of the writings of Moses. The 
particulars we read of him are consistent 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 75 

with each other, and with the lot to which 
he was born, for this more or less models 
the character of every man. The lot of 
Jacob had not fallen upon the fairest of 
grounds. Life, especially the former part 
of it, did not run so smoothly with him as 
with his father Isaac — so that he might be 
tempted to say to Pharaoh towards the 
close of it, naturally enough, that " the 
days of the years of it had been evil." 
The faults of his vouth had been visited 
upon his manhood with a retributive jus- 
tice not unfrequent in God's moral govern- 
ment of the world, where the very sin by 
which a man offends is made the rod by 
which he is corrected. Rebekah's undue 
partiality for her younger son, which leads 
her to deal cunningly for his promotion 
unto honour, works for her the loss of that 
son for the remainder of her days — his own 
unjust attempts at gaining the superiority 

£ 2 



78 THE VERACITY OF THE 

over his elder brother entail upon him 
twenty years' slavery in a foreign land — 
and the arts by which he had made Esau 
to suffer are precisely those by which he 
surfers himself at the hands of Laban. Of 
this man, the first thing we hear is his 
entertainment of Abraham's servant when 
he came on his errand to Rebekah. Hos- 
pitality was the virtue of his age and 
country ; in his case, however, it seems to 
have been no little stimulated by the sight 
of " the ear-ring and the bracelets on his 
sister's hands," which the servant had 
already given her * — so he speedily made 
room for the camels. He next is pre- 
sented to us as beguiling that sister's son, 
who had sought a shelter in his house, and 
whose circumstances placed him at his 
mercy, of fourteen years' service, when he 

* Genesis xxiv. 30. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 77 

had covenanted with him for seven only- — 
endeavouring to retain his labour when he 
would not pay him his labour's worth — 
himself devouring the portion which he 
should have given to his daughters, count- 
ing them but as strangers.* Compelled at 
length to pay Jacob wages, he changes 
them ten times ; and in the spirit of a crafty 
griping worldling, makes him account for 
whatever of the flock was torn of beasts or 
stolen, whether by day or night. When 
Jacob flies from this iniquitous service with 
his family and cattle, Laban still pursues 
and persecutes him, intending, if his in- 
tentions had not been over-ruled by a 
mightier hand, to send him away empty, 
even after he had been making, for so long 
a period, so usurious a profit of him. 

I think it was to be expected that one 

* Genesis xxxi. 15. 



78 THE VERACITY OF THE 

who had been disciplined in such a school 
as this, and for such a season, would not 
come out of it without bearing about him 
its marks ; and that oppressed first by the 
just fury of his brother, which put his life 
in hazard, and drove him into exile, and 
then oppressed still more by the continued 
tyranny of a father-in-law, such as we have 
seen, Jacob should have learned, like mal- 
treated animals, to have the fear of man 
habitually before his eyes. Now that it was 
so, is evident from all the latter part of his 
history. 

He is afraid that Laban will not let him 
go, and therefore takes the 'precaution to 
steal from him unawares, when he is gone 
to a distance to shear his sheep. He ap- 
proaches the borders of Edom, but here 
the ancient dread of his brother revives, 
and he takes the precaution to propitiate 
him or to escape him by measures which 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 79 

breathe the spirit of the man in a singular 
manner. He sends him a message — it is 
from " Jacob, thy servant " to " Esau, my 
lord." Esau advances, and he at once 
fears the worst. Then does he divide his 
people and substance into two bands, that 
if the one be smitten, the other may escape ; 
he provides a present of many cattle for 
his brother — he commands his servants to 
put a space between each drove, apparently 
to add effect to the splendour of his pre- 
sent — he charges them to deliver severally 
their own portion, with the tidings that he 
was behind who sent it — he appoints their 
places to the women and children with the 
same prudential considerations that mark 
his whole conduct : first the hand-maids 
and their children ; then Leah and her 
children ; and in the hindermost and least 
exposed place, his favourite Rachael and 
Joseph. Such are his precautions. They 



80 THE VERACITY OF THE 

are all, however, needless — Esau owes him 
no wrong — he even proposes to escort him 
home in peace, or to leave him a guard 
out of the four hundred men that were with 
him. But Jacob evades both proposals ; 
apprehending, most likely, more danger from 
his friends than from his foes ; and dis- 
misses his brother with a word about " fol- 
lowing my Lord to Seir" — an intention 
which, as far as we know, he was in more 
haste to express than accomplish. 

All this ended, the honour of his house 
is violated by Shechem, a son of a prince 
of that country. Even this insult does not 
throw him off his guard. He heard it, 
" but he held his peace" till his sons, who 
were with the cattle in the field, should 
come home. They soon proceed to take 
summary vengeance on the Shechemites. 
The fear of man, however, which had 
restrained the wrath of Jacob at the first, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 81 

besets him still, and he now says to his 
sons — " Ye have troubled me to make me 
to stink among the inhabitants of the land, 
and I being few in number, they shall 
gather themselves together against me and 
slay me, and I shall be destroyed I and 
my house."* Jacob would have been bet- 
ter pleased with more compromise and less 
cruelty — he was not prepared to give ut- 
terance to that feeling of turbulent indig- 
nation, reckless of all consequences, which 
spake in the words of Simeon and Levi — 
" Shall he deal with our sister as with an 
harlot?" Here again, however, his fears 
proved groundless. 

Many years now pass away, but when 
we meet him once more he is still the same 
—■the same leading feature in his character 
continues to the last. His sons go down 

* Genesis xxxiv. 30. 

E 3 



82 THE VERACITY OF THE 

into Egypt for corn in the famine — they 
return with an injunction from Joseph to 
take back with them Benjamin, or else to 
see his face no more. This is urged upon 
Jacob, and the reply it extorts from him is 
in strict keeping with all that has gone 
before: — " Wherefore dealt ye so ill with 
me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a 
brother?"* Still we see one whom suf- 
fering had rendered distrustful — who would 
lend many his ear, but few his tongue. 
The famine presses so sore, that there is 
no alternative but to yield up his son. 
Still he is the same individual. Judah is 
in haste to be gone — he will be surety for 
the lad — he will bring him again, or bear 
the blame for ever. But Jacob gives little 
heed to these vapouring promises of a san- 
guine adviser, and as stooping before a 

* Genesis xliii. 6. 






FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 83 

necessity which was too strong for him, he 
prudently sets himself to devise means to 
disarm the danger ; and " if it must be so 
now," says he, " do this, take of the best 
fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry 
down the man a present, a little balm and a 
little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and 
almonds — and take double money in your 
hand ; and the money that was brought 
again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it 
again in your hand, peradventure it was an 
over-sight." * 

I cannot persuade myself that these are 
not marks of a real character — especially 
when I consider that this identity is found 
in incidents spread over a period of a hun- 
dred years or more — that they are mere 
hints, as it were, out of which we are left 
to construct the man ; hints interrupted by 

* Genesis xliii. 12. 



84 THE VERACITY OF THE 

a multitude of other matters ; the genea- 
logy and adventures of Esau and his Arab 
tribes ; the household affairs of Potiphar ; 
the dreams of Pharaoh ; the polity of Egypt 
— that the facts thus dispersed and broken 
are to be brought together by ourselves, 
and the general induction to be drawn from 
them by ourselves, nothing being more 
remote from the mind of Moses than to 
present us with a portrait of Jacob ; nay, 
that of Isaac, who happens to be less 
involved in the circumstances of his his- 
tory, he scarcely gives us a single feature. 
Surely, with all this before us, it is impos- 
sible to entertain the idea for a moment of 
any studied uniformity. Yet an uniformity 
there is; casual, therefore, on the part of 
Moses, who was thinking nothing about it 
— but complete, because, without .thinking 
about it, he was by some means or other 
drawing from the life. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. $5 

And now am I thought to disparage the 
character of this holy man of old ? God 
forbid ! I think that in the incidents I have 
named his conduct may be excused, if not 
justified. But were it otherwise, I am -not 
aware that any of the Patriarchs have been 
set up, or can be set up, as a genuine 
pattern of Christian morals. They saw the 
Promise, (and the more questionable parts 
of Jacob's conduct are to be accounted for 
by his impatience to obtain the Promise, 
and by his consequently using unlawful 
means to obtain it,) but " they saw it afar 
off"— "they beheld it, but not nigh." 
They lived under a code of laws that were 
not absolutely good, perhaps not so good 
as the Levitical ; for as this was but a pre- 
paration for the more perfect Law of Christ, 
so possibly was the Patriarchal but a pre- 
paration for the more perfect Law of Moses. 
Indeed I have already observed, that many 



86 THE VERACITY OF THE 

scattered hints may be gathered from this 
latter Law, which show that it was but the 
Law under which the Patriarchs had lived 
re-constructed, augmented, and improved 
— and I apprehend that such a scheme of 
progressive advancement — first the dawn, 
then the day, then the perfect ,day — is 
analogous to God's dealings in general. 
But the broad light in which the Fathers 
of Israel are to be viewed is this, that they 
were exclusive worshippers of the One 
True Everlasting God, in a world of ido- 
laters — that they were living depositaries 
of the great doctrine of the Unity of the 
Godhead, when the nations around were 
resorting to every green tree — that they 
u were faithful found among the faithless." 
And so incalculably important was the pre- 
servation of this Great Article of the Creed 
of man, at a time when it rested in the 
keeping of so few, that the language of the 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 87 

Almighty in the Law seems ever to have 
a respect unto it : fury, anger, indignation, 
jealousy, hatred, being expressions rarely, 
if ever, attributed to him, except in refer- 
ence to idolatry — and, on the other hand, 
enemies of God, adversaries of God, haters 
of God, being there — chiefly and above all, 
idolaters. But in this sense God was em- 
phatically the God of Abraham, the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob : none of 
them, not even the last, (for the only pas- 
sage which savours of the contrary admits, 
as we have seen, of easy explanation,) 
having ever forfeited their claim to this 
high and glorious title ; however, such title 
may not be thought to imply that their 
moral characters and conduct were fault- 
less, and worthy of all acceptation. 



88 THE VERACITY OF THE 



IX. 

Tpie marks of coincidence without design, 
which I have brought forward to prove the 
truth of the Books of Moses, as succes- 
sively presenting themselves in the history 
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, I shall 
now follow up by others in the history of 
Joseph. 

By the ill-concealed partiality of his fa- 
ther, and his own incaution in declaring 
his dreams of future greatness, Joseph had 
incurred the hatred of his brethren. They 
were feeding the flock near Shechem — 
Jacob desires to satisfy himself of their 
welfare, and sends Joseph to inquire of 

them and to brins* him word a^ain. Mean- 
er o 

while they had driven farther a-field to 
Doth an ; and Joseph, informed of this by a 
man whom he found wandering in the 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 89 

country, followed them thither. They be- 
held him when he was yet afar off ; his 
dress was remarkable,* and the eye of the 
shepherd in the plain country of the East, 
like that of the mariner now, was no doubt 
practised and keen. They take their coun- 
sel together against him. They conclude, 
however, not to stain their hands in the 
blood of their brother, but to cast him into 
an empty pit, which, in those countries, 
where the inhabitants were constantly en- 
gaged in a fruitless search for water, was a 
very likely place to be on the spot. There 
he was to be left to die, or, as Reuben 
intended, to remain till he could rid him 
out of their hands. 

Nothing can be more artless than this 
story. Nothing can bear more indisputable 
signs of truth than its details. But the cir- 

* Genesis xxxvii. 3. 



90 THE VERACITY OF THE 

cumstance, on which I now rest, is another 
that is mentioned. The brothers, having" 
achieved their evil purpose, sat down to eat 
bread — possibly some household present 
which Jacob had sent them, and Joseph 
had just conveyed, such as on a somewhat 
similar occasion, in after-times, Jesse sent 
and David conveyed to his elder brethren 
in the camp — though on this, as on a 
thousand touches of truth of the like kind, 
the reader of Moses is left to make his 
own speculations. And now " they lifted 
up their eyes and looked, and behold a 
company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead 
with their camels, bearing spicery and balm 
and myrrh, going to carry it down to 
Egijpt."* Now this, though by no means 
an obvious incident to have suggested it- 
self, does seem to me a very natural one 

* Genesis xxxvii. 25. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 91 

to have occurred ; and, what is more, is an 
incident which tallies remarkably well with 
what we read elsewhere, in a passage, how- 
ever, having no reference whatever to the 
one in question. For have we not reason 
to know, that at this very early period in 
the history of the world, this first of cara- 
vans upon record was charged with a cargo 
for Egypt singularly adapted to the wants 
of the Egyptians at that time ? Expunge 
the 2nd and 3rd verses of the 50th chapter 
of Genesis, and the symptoms of veracity 
in the narrative which I here detect, or 
think I detect, would never have been dis- 
coverable. But in those verses I am told 
that " Joseph commanded the physicians 
to embalm his father — and the physicians 
embalmed Israel — and forty days were ful- 
filled to him ; for so are fulfilled the days 
of those which are embalmed, and the Egyp- 
tians mourned threescore and ten days." 



92 THE VERACITY OF THE 

I conclude, therefore, from this, that in 
these very ancient times it was the practice 
of the Egyptians (for Joseph was here 
doing that which was the custom of the 
country where he lived) to embalm their 
dead — and we know from the case of our 
Lord that an hundred pounds' weight of 
myrrh and aloes was not more than enough 
for a single body.* Hence, then, the camel- 
loads of spices which the Ishmaelites were 
bringing from Gilead would naturally 
enough find an ample market in Egypt. 

Now is it easy to come to any other 
conclusion, when trifles of this kind drop 
out, fitted one to another, like the corre- 
sponding parts of a cloven tally, than that 
both are true ? — that the historian, however 
he obtained his intelligence, is speaking of 
particulars which fell within his own know- 

* Johnxix. 39. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 93 

ledge, and is speaking of them faithfully ? 
Surely nothing can be more incidental than 
the mention of the lading of these camels of 
the Ishmaelites — it has nothing to do with 
the main fact, which is merely this, that 
the party, whoever they were, and whatever 
they were bent upon, were ready to buy 
Joseph, and that his brethren were ready 
to sell him. On the other hand, no one 
can suspect that when Moses relates Joseph 
to have caused his father's body to be 
embalmed, he had an eye to corroborating 
his account of the adventure which he had 
already told concerning the Ishmaelitish 
merchants, who might thus seem occupied 
in a traffic that was appropriate. 

I think that this single coincidence 
would induce an unprejudiced person to 
believe that the hrdiriary parts of this story 
are matters of fact fully known to the his- 
torian, and accurately reported by him. 



94 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Yet it is an integral portion of this same 
story, uttered by the same historian, that 
Joseph had visions of his future destinies, 
which were strictly fulfilled — that the whole 
proceeding with regard to him had been 
under God's controlling influence from be- 
ginning to end — that though his brethren 
" thought evil against him, God meant it 
unto good," to bring to pass, as he did at a 
future day, " to save much people alive."* 



Nor is this all, with regard to Egypt, 
wherein is seen the image and superscrip- 
tion of truth. An argument for the Vera- 
city of the New Testament has been found 
in the harmony which pervades the very 
many incidental notices of the condition 

* Genesis 1. 20. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 95 

of Judea at the period when the New 
Testament professes to have been written. 
A similar agreement without design may 
be remarked in the occasional glimpses of 
Egypt which open upon us in the course of 
the Mosaic History. For instance, I perceive 
in each and all p,f the following incidents 
indirect indications of this one fact, that 
Egypt was already* a great com country — 
though I do not believe that such a fact is 
directly asserted in any passage in the whole 
Pentateuch. Thus, when Abram found a 
famine in the land of Canaan, " he went 
down into Egypt to sojourn there." # There 
was a second famine in a part of Canaan 
in the days of Isaac : he, however, on this 
occasion went to Gerar, which was in the 
country of the Philistines; but it appears 
as though this was only to have been a 

* Genesis xii. 10. , 



96 THE VERACITY OF THE 

stage in a journey which he was projecting 
into Egypt; for we read, that iC the Lord 
appeared unto him and said, Go not down 
into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall 
tell thee of." # There is a third famine in 
Canaan in the time of Jacob, and then 
" all countries came unto Egypt to buy 
corn, because the famine was so sore in all 
lands."f Again, I read of Pharaoh being 
wroth with two of his officers — they are 
spoken of as persons of some distinction in 
the Court of the Egyptian King — and who 
were they ? One was the chief of the 
Butlers, but the other was the chief of the 
Bakers.\ Still I see in this an indication 
of Egypt being a corn country ; of bread 
being there literally the staff of life, and. 
the manufacturing and dispensing of it an 



* Genesis xxvi. 2. t Ibid. xli. 57. 

% Ibid. xl. 1. 






FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 97 

employment of considerable trust and con- 
sequence. 

So again I find, that in the fabric of the 
bricks of Egypt straw was a very essential 
element ; and so abundant does the corn- 
crop seem to have been — so widely was it 
spread over the face of the country, that 
the task-masters of the Israelites could 
exact the usual tale of the bricks, though 
the people had to gather the stubble for 
themselves to supply the place of the 
straw, which was withheld.* Still I per- 
ceive in this an intimation of the agricul- 
tural fertility of Egypt — there could not 
have been the stubble-land here implied 
unless corn had been the staple crop of 
the country. Then when Moses threatens 
to plague the Egyptians with a Plague of 
Frogs, what are the places which at once 

* Exodus v. 7. 



98 THE VERACITY OF THE 

present themselves as those which are 
likely to be defiled by their presence ? — ■ 
" The river shall bring* forth frogs abund- 
antly, which shall go up and come into 
thine house, and into thy bed-chamber, 
and upon thy bed, and into the house of 
thy servants, and upon thy people, and 
into thine ovens, and into thy kneading- 
iroughs."* And of these kneading-troughs 
we again read, as utensils possessed by all, 
and without which they could not think 
even of taking a journey — for on the deli- 
very of the Israelites from Egypt, we i find 
that u they took their dough before it was 
leavened, their kneading - troughs being 
bound up in their clothes upon their 
shoulders." f 

Now it may be said, that we all know 
Egypt to have been a great corn-country — 

* Exodus viii. 3. f ^id. xii. 34. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 99 

that the thing admits of no doubt, and 
never did ■ — I allow it to be so — and if 
such a fact had been asserted in the writ- 
ings of Moses as a broad fact, I should 
have taken no notice of it, for it would 
then have afforded no ground for an argu- 
ment like this ; in such a case, Moses 
might have come at the knowledge as we 
ourselves may have done, by having vi- 
sited the country himself, or by having 
received a report of it from others who had 
visited it, and so might have incorporated 
this amongst other incidents in his history ; 
but I do not observe it asserted by him 
in round terms ; it is not indeed asserted 
by him at all — it is intimated— intimated 
when he is manifestly not thinking about 
it, when his mind and his pen are quite 
intent upon other matters; intimated very 
often, very indirectly, in very various ways. 

f 2 



100 THE VERACITY OF THE 

The fact itself of Egypt being a great corn- 
country was no doubt perfectly well known 
to Dr. Johnson ; but though so much of 
the scene of Rasselas is laid in Egypt, I 
will venture to say, that there are in it 
no hints of the nature I am describing ; 
such, I mean, as would serve to convince 
us that the author was relating a series 
of events which had happened under his 
own eye, and that the places with which 
he combines them were not ideal, but those 
wherein they actually came to pass. 

Surely, then, it is very satisfactory to 
discover concurrence thus uniform, thus 
uncontrived, in particulars falling out at 
intervals in the course of an artless nar- 
rative which is not afraid to proclaim the 
Almighty as manifesting himself by signal 
miracles, and which connects those miracles 
too in the closest union with the subordi- 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 101 

nate matters of which we have thus been 
able to ascertain the probable truth and 
accuracy. 



XL 



Before we dismiss this question of the 
Corn in Egypt, we may remark another 
trifling instance or two of consistency with- 
out design, declaring themselves in this 
part of the narrative and tending to 
strengthen our belief in it. Joseph, it 
seems,* advised Pharaoh before the famine 
began, to appoint officers over the land, 
that should " take up the fifth part of the 
land of Egypt in the seven plenteous 
years." After this we have several chap- 
ters occupied with the details of the history 
of Jacob and his sons — the journey of the 

* Genesis xli. 34. 



102 THE VERACITY OF THE 

latter to Egypt — their return to their fa- 
ther — the repetition of their journey — the 
discovery of Joseph — the migration of the 
Patriarch with all his family, of whom the 
individuals are named after their respective 
heads — the introduction of Jacob to Pha- 
raoh, and his final settlement in the land 
of Goshen. Then the affair of the famine 
is again touched upon in a few verses, 
and a permanent regulation of property in 
Egypt is recorded as the accidental result 
of that famine. For the people, who had 
sold both themselves and their lands to 
Pharaoh for corn to preserve life, are now 
permitted to redeem both on the payment 
of a fifth of the produce to the King for 
ever. " And Joseph made it a law over 
the land of Egypt unto this day, that 
Pharaoh should have the fifth part."* Now 

* Genesis xlvii. 26. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 103 

this was, as we had been told in a former 
chapter, precisely the proportion which 
Joseph had " taken up " before the famine 
began. It was then an arrangement en- 
tered into with the proprietors of the soil 
prospectively, as likely to ensure the sub- 
sistence of the people ; the experiment was 
found to answer ; and the opportunity of 
perpetuating it having occurred, the ar- 
rangement was now made lasting and com- 
pulsory. Magazines of corn were hence- 
forth to be established, which should at 
all times be ready to meet an accidental 
failure of the harvest. 

Can anything be more natural than this ? 
anything more common than for great civil 
and political changes to spring out of pro- 
visions which chanced to be made to meet 
some temporary emergency? Has not our 
own constitution, and have not the con- 
stitutions of most other countries, ancient 



104 THE VERACITY OF THE 

and modern, grown out of occasion — out 
of the impulse of the day ? 

Further still. Though Joseph possessed 
himself, on his royal master's account, of 
all the land of Egypt besides, and disposed 
of the people throughout the country just 
as he pleased,* " he did not buy the land of 
the priests, for the priests had a portion 
assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat 
their portion which Pharaoh gave them, 
wherefore they sold not their lands." The 
priests then, we see, were greatly favoured 
in the arrangements made at this period 
of national distress. Now does not this 
accord with what we had been told on a 
former occasion, — that Pharaoh being desi- 
rous to do Joseph honour, causing him to 
ride in the second chariot that he had, 
and crying before him, bow the knee, and 

* Genesis xlvii. 22. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 105 

making him ruler over all the land of 
Egypt,* added yet this as the final proof 
of his high regard, that " he gave him to 
wife Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, 
Priest of On ? " | When, therefore, the 
priests were thus held in esteem by Pha- 
raoh, and when the minister of Pharaoh, 
under whose immediate directions all the 
regulations of the polity of Egypt were at 
that time conducted, had the daughter of 
one of them for his wife, is it not the most 
natural thing in the world to have happened, 
that their lands should be spared? 

XII. 

I have already found an argument for the 
veracity of Moses in the identity of Jacob's 
character, I now find another in the iden- 
tity of that of Joseph. There is one quality 

* Genesis xli. 43. f Ibid. xli. 45. 

F 3 



106 THE VERACITY OF THE 

(as it has been often observed, though with 
a different view from mine,) which runs 
like a thread through his whole history, 
his affection for his father. Israel loved 
him, we read, more than all his children — 
he was the child of his age — his mother 
died whilst he was yet young, and a 
double care of him consequently devolved 
upon his surviving parent. He made him 
a coat of many colours — he kept him at 
home when his other sons were sent to 
feed the flocks. When the bloody gar- 
ment was brought in, Jacob in his affec- 
tion for him_, (that same affection which 
on a subsequent occasion, when it was told 
him that after all Joseph was alive, made 
him as slow to believe the good tidings as 
he was now quick to apprehend the sad,) 
in this his affection for him, I say, Jacob 
at once concluded the worst, and u he rent 
his clothes and put sackcloth upon his 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 107 

loins, and mourned for his son many days, 
and all his daughters rose up to comfort 
him ; but he refused to be comforted ; and 
he said, for I will go down into the grave 
unto my son, mourning." 

Now what were the feelings in Joseph 
which responded to these ? When the 
sons of Jacob went down to Egypt, and 
Joseph knew them though they knew not 
him, for they (it may be remarked, and 
this again is not like fiction,) were of an 
age not to be greatly changed by the lapse 
of years, and were still sustaining the cha- 
racter in which Joseph had always seen 
them, whilst he himself had meanwhile 
grown out of the stripling into the man, 
and from a shepherd-boy was become the 
ruler of a kingdom — when his brethren 
thus came before him, his question was, 
" Is your father yet alive?"* They went 

* Genesis xliii, 7. 



108 THE VERACITY OF THE 

down a second time, and again the ques- 
tion was, " Is your father well, the old man 
of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?" More 
he could not venture to ask, whilst he was 
yet in his disguise. By a stratagem he 
now detains Benjamin, leaving the others, 
if they would, to go their way. But Judah 
came near unto him, and entreated him for 
his brother, telling him how that he had 
been " surety to his father " to bring him 
back — how that " his father was an old 
man," and that this was the " child of his 
old age, and that he loved him," — how it 
would come to pass that if he should not 
see the lad with him he would die, and his 
grey hairs be brought with sorrow to the 
grave ; for " how shall I go to my father, 
and the lad be not with me, — lest, perad- 
venture, I see the evil that shall come on 
my father." Here, without knowing it, 
he had struck the string that was the ten- 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 109 

derest of all. Joseph's firmness forsook him 
at this repeated mention of his father, and 
in terms so touching — he could not refrain 
himself any longer, and causing every man 
to go out, he made himself known to hi& 
brethren. Then, even in the paroxysm 
which came on him (for he wept aloud so- 
that the Egyptians heard), still his first 
words uttered from the fulness of his heart 
were, " doth my father yet live ? " He 
now bids them hasten and bring the old 
man down, bearing to him tokens of his 
love and tidings of his glory. He goes to 
meet him---he presents himself unto him, 
and falls on his neck, and weeps on his 
neck a good while — he provides for him 
and his household out of the fat of the 
land — he sets him before Pharaoh. By 
and by he hears that be is sick, and 
hastens to visit him — he receives his bless- 
ing — watches his deathbed — embalms his 



110 THE VERACITY OF THE 

body — mourns for him threescore-and-ten 
days — and then carries him (as he had de- 
sired) into Canaan to bury him, taking with 
him as an escort to do him honour " all 
the elders of Egypt, and all the servants of 
Pharaoh, and all his house, and the house 
of his brethren, chariots and horsemen, a 
very great company." 

How natural was it now for his brethren 
to think that the tie by which alone they 
could imagine Joseph to be held to them 
was dissolved, that any respect he might 
have felt or feigned for them, must have 
been buried in the Cave of Machpelah, 
and that he would now requite to them the 
evil they had done ! " And they sent a 
message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father 
did command before he died, saying, so 
shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray 
thee now, the trespass of thy brethren and 
their sin, — for they did unto thee evil." 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. Ill 

And then they add of themselves, as if well 
aware of the surest road to their brother's 
heart, " Forgive, we pray thee, the tres- 
pass of the servants of the God of thy 
father." In every thing the father s name 
is still put foremost ; it is his memory 
which they count upon as their shield and 
buckler. Moreover it may be added, that 
though all intercourse had ceased for so 
many years between Joseph and his family, 
still the lasting affection he bore to a 
parent is manifested in the name which he 
gave to his son born to him only two 
years before the famine, even Manas seh or 
Forgetting — for God, said he. " hath made 
me forget all my toil and all my father s 
house ;" as though instead of his father he 
must have children to fill up the void in 
his heart which a parent's loss had created. 
. It is not the singular beauty of these 
scenes, or the moral lesson they teach, 



112 THE VERACITY" OF THE 

excellent as it is, with which I am now 
concerned, but simply the perfect artless. 
consistency which prevails through them 
all. It is not the constancy with which 
the son's strong* affection for his father 
had lived through an interval of twenty 
years' absence, and what is more, through 
the temptation of sudden promotion to the 
highest estate — it is not the noble-minded 
frankness with which he still acknowledges 
his kindred, and makes a way for them, 
" shepherds " as they were, to the throne of 
Pharaoh himself — it is not the simplicity 
and singleness of heart, which allow him 
to give all the first-born of Egypt, men 
over whom he bore absolute rule, an op- 
portunity of observing his own compara- 
tively humble origin, by leading them in 
attendance upon his father's corpse, to the 
valleys of Canaan and the modest cradle 
of his race — it is not, in a word, the grace, 






FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 113 

but the identity of Joseph's character, the 
light in which it is exhibited by him- 
self, and the light in which it is regarded 
by his brethren, to which I now point as 
stamping it with marks of reality not to be 
gainsaid. 

XIII. 

I will now follow the Israelites out of 
Egypt into the wilderness, on their return 
to the land from which their fathers had 
wandered, and which they, or at least their 
children, were destined to enjoy. 

In the 10th chapter of Leviticus we are 
told that " Nadab and Abihu, the sons of 
Aaron, took either of them his censer and 
put fire therein, and put incense thereon, 
and offered strange fire unto the Lord, 
which he commanded them not. And 
there went out fire from the Lord and de- 



114 THE VERACITY OF THE 

voured them, and they died before the 
Lord." Now it is natural to ask, how- 
came Nadab and Abihu to be guilty of this 
careless affront to God, lighting their cen- 
sers probably from their own hearths, and 
not from the hallowed fire of the , altar, as 
they were commanded to do ? Possibly we 
cannot guess how it happened — it may be 
one of those many matters which are of no 
particular importance to be known, and 
concerning which we are accordingly left 
in the dark. Yet when I read shortly af- 
terwards the following instructions given 
to Aaron, I am led to suspect that they 
had their origin in some recent abuse 
which called for them, though no such 
origin is expressly assigned to them. I 
cannot help imagining, that the offence of 
Nadab and Abihu was at the bottom of the 
statute, " do not drink wine nor strong 
drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 115 

ye go into the Tabernacle of the congrega- 
tion, lest ye die — it shall be a statute for 
ever throughout your generations : and 
that ye may put difference between holy 
and unholy, and between clean and un- 
clean ; and that ye may teach the children 
of Israel all the statutes which the Lord 
hath spoken unto them by the hand of 
Moses." Thus far at least is clear, that a 
grievous and thou gthless insult is offered 
to God by two of his Priests, for which 
they are cut off — that without any direct 
allusion to their case, but still very shortly 
after it had happened, a law is issued for- 
bidding the Priests the use of wine when 
about to minister. I conclude, therefore, 
that there was a relation (though it is not 
asserted) between the specific offence and 
the general law ; the more so, because the 
sin against which that law is directed is just 
of a kind to have produced the rash and 






116 THE VERACITY OF THE 

inconsiderate act of which Aaron's sons- 
were guilty. If, therefore, this incidental 
mention of such a law at such a moment, a 
moment so likely to suggest the enactment 
of it, be thought enough to establish the 
law as a matter of fact, then have we once 
more ground to stand upon ; for the enact- 
ment of the law is coupled with the sin of 
Aaron's sons ; their sin with their punish- 
ment ; their punishment with a miracle. 
Nor, it may be added, does the unreserved 
and faithful record of such a death, suffered 
for such an offence, afford an inconsidera- 
ble argument in favour of the candour and 
honesty of Moses, who is no respecter of 
persons it seems ; but when God's glory 
is concerned, and the welfare of the people 
entrusted to him, does not scruple to be 
the chronicler of the disgrace and destruc- 
tion even of the children of his own bro- 
ther. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 117 



XIV. 

Another coincidence suggests itself, arising 
out of this same portion of history, whether 
however founded in fact or in fancy, be my 
readers the judges. From the 9th chapter 
of Numbers, v. 15, we learn that the Ta- 
bernacle was erected in the wilderness pre- 
paratory to the celebration of the first 
Passover kept by the Israelties after their 
escape from Egypt. From the 40th chap, 
ter of Exodus we find, that it was reared 
on the first day of the first month, (v. 2,) 
pr thirteen days before the Passover,* and 
that at the same time Aaron and his sons 
were consecrated to minister in it (v. 13.) 
In the 8th and 9th chapters of Leviticus 
are given the particulars of their consecra- 

-* Leviticus xxiii. 5. t See ch. ix. 8. 12: x. 19. 



118 THE VERACITY OF THE 

tion, (8th, 6, 12, 30.) and the ceremony is 
said to have occupied seven days, (v. 33,) 
during which they were not to leave the 
Tabernacle day or night. On the eighth 
day they offered up sin-offerings for them- 
selves and for the people. It was on this 
same day, as we read in the 10th chapter,f 
that Nadab and Abihu were cut off because 
of the strange fire which they offered, and 
their dead bodies were disposed of as folr 
lows : — " Moses called Mishael and Elza- 
phan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of 
Aaron, and said unto them, Come near, 
carry your brethren from before the sanc- 
tuary out of the camp. So they went near, 
and carried them in their coats out of the 
camp." (x. 4.) All this happened on the 
eighth day of the first month, or just six 
days before the Passover. 

Now in the 9th chapter of the Book of 
Numbers, which speaks of this identical 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 119 

Passover, (v. 1,) as will be seen by a refer- 
ence to the first verse of that chapter, (in- 
deed there is no mention of more than this 
one Passover having been kept in the 
whole march,*) in this 9th chapter I am 
told of the following incidental difficulty : 
— that " there were certain men who were 
defiled by the dead body of a man, that 
they could not keep the Passover on that 
day — and they came before Moses and be- 
fore Aaron on that day — and those men 
said unto him, We are defiled by the dead 
body of a man, wherefore are we kept back 
that we may not offer an offering to the 
Lord in his appointed season among the 
children of Israel." (v. 6, 7.) The case is 
spoken of as a solitary one. 

Now it may be observed, by way of li- 
miting the question, that the number of 



* s 



ee also Joshua v. 9, 10. 



120 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Israelites who paid a tax to the Tabernacle a 
short time, and only a short time, before its 
erection, were 603,550, being all the males 
above twenty years of age, the Levites ex- 
cepted* — at least this exception is all but 
certain, that tribe being the tellers, being 
already consecrated, and set apart from the 
other tribes, and it not being usual to take 
the sum of them anions; the children of 
Israel. f- Moreover, the number is likely 
in this instance, to be correct, because 
it tallies with the number of talents to 
which the poll-tax amounted at half a 
shekel a head. But shortly after the Ta- 
bernacle had been set up (for it was at the 
beginning of the second month of the se- 
cond year), the number of the people was 
again taken according to the families and 
tribes^ and still it is just the same as be- 

* Exodus xxxviii. 26. f See Numbers i. 47, 49, 

i Numbers i. 46. and xxvi. 62. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 121 

fore, 603,550 men. In this short interval, 
therefore, (which is that in which we are 
now interested,) it should seem, that no 
man had died of the males who were above 
twenty, not being Levites — for of these 
no account seems to have been taken in 
either census — indeed in the latter census 
they are expressly excepted. The dead 
body, therefore, by which these " certain 
men" were defiled, could not have belonged 
to this large class of the Israelites. But of 
a case of death, and of defilement in conse- 
quence, which had happened only six days 
before the Passover, amongst the Levites, 
we had been told (as we have seen) in the 
9th chapter of Leviticus. My conclusion, 
therefore, is, that these " certain men,' 
who were defiled, were no others than 
Mishael and Elzaphan, who had carried 
out the dead bodies of Nadab and Abihu. 
Neither can any thing be more likely than 

G 



122 THE VERACITY OF THE 

that, with the lively- impression on their 
minds of God's wrath so recently testified 
against those who should presume to ap- 
proach him unhallowed, they should refer 
their case to Moses, and run no risk. 

I state the conclusion and the grounds 
of it. To those who require stronger 
proof, I can only say I have none to give ; 
but if the coincidence be thought well 
founded, then surely a more striking ex- 
ample of consistency without design can- 
not well be conceived. Indeed after it had 
been suggested to me by a hint to this 
effect, thrown out by Dr. Shuckford, un- 
accompanied by any exposition of the ar- 
guments which might be urged in support 
of it, I had put it aside as one of those gra- 
tuitous conjectures in which that learned 
Author may perhaps be thought sometimes 
to indulge — till by searching more accu- 
rately through several detached parts of 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 123 

several detached chapters in Exodus, Levi- 
ticus, and Numbers, I was able to collect 
the evidence I have produced, whether 
satisfactory or not — be my readers, as I 
have said, the judges. For myself, I con- 
fess, that though it is not demonstrative, 
it is very persuasive. 

XV. 

"All the congregation of the children of 
Israel," we read,* "journeyed from the 
wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, ac- 
cording to the commandment of the Lord, 
and pitched in Rephidim : and there was n& 
water for the people to drink" — " And the 
people thirsted there for water; and the 
people murmured against Moses, and said, 
Wherefore is this, that thou hast brought 

* Exodus, xvii. 1. 

G 2 



124 THE VERACITY OF THE 

us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our chil- 
dren, and our cattle, with thirst?" (v. 3.) 
Moses upon this entreats the Lord for 
Israel ; and the narrative proceeds in the 
words of the Almighty- — " Behold, I will 
stand before thee there upon the rock in 
Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and 
there shall come water out of it, that the 
people may drink. And Moses did so in 
the si^ht of the elders of Israel. And he 
called the name of the place Massah, and 
Meribah, because of the chiding of the 
people of Israel, and because they tempt- 
ed the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, 
or not?" " Then came Amalek^ the nar- 
rative continues, u and fought with Israel 
in Rephidim." 

Now this last incident is mentioned, as 
must be perceived at once, without any 
other reference to what had gone before 
than a reference of date, i It was " then " 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 125 

that Amalek came.. It is the beginning of 
another adventure which befel the Israelites, 
and which Moses now goes on to relate. 
Accordingly in many copies of our English 
version a mark is here introduced indi- 
cating the commencement of a fresh para- 
graph. Yet I cannot but suspect, that 
there is a coincidence in this case between 
the production of the water, in an arid wil- 
derness, and the attack of the Amalekites 
■ — -that though no hint whatever to this 
effect is dropped, there is, nevertheless the 
relation between them of cause and conse- 
quence. For what in those times and 
those countries was so common a bone of 
contention as the possession of a well? 
Thus we read of Abraham reproving Abi- 
melech because, of the well of water which 
Abimelech's servants had violently taken 
away."* And again we are told, that 

* Genesis xxi. 25. 



126 THE VERACITY OF THE 

41 Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and 
found there a well of springing water. — 
And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with 
Isaac's herdmen, saying, the water is ours ; 
and he called the name of the well Esek, 
because they strove with him. And they 
digged another well, and strove for that 
also ; and he called the name of it Sitnah. 
And he removed from thence, and digged 
another well : and for that thev strove not: 
and he called the name of it Rehoboth ; 
and he said, For now the Lord hath made 
room for us ; and we shall be fruitful in 
the land."* In like manner when the 
daughters of the Priest of Midian "came 
and drew water, and filled the troughs to 
water their father's flock, the shepherds," 
we find, u came and drove them away : but 
Moses stood up, and helped them, and wa- 

* Genesis xxvi. 19 — 22. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 127 

tered their flock."* And again, when Moses 
sent messengers to the King of Edom with 
proposals that he might be permitted to 
lead the people of Israel through his ter- 
ritory, the subject of water enters very 
largely into the terms. " Let us pass, 
I pray thee, through thy country : we will 
not pass through the fields, or through 
the vineyards, neither will we drink of the 
ivater of the ivells : we will go by the king's 
highway — we will not turn to the right 
hand, nor to the left, until we have passed 
thy borders. And Edom said unto him, 
Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out 
against thee with the sword. And the 
children of Israel said unto him, we will go 
by the highway : and if I and my cattle 
drink of thy ivater, then I will fay for it."f 
Again, on a subsequent occasion, Moses 

* Exodus ii. 17. t Numbers xx. 17. 



128 THE VERACITY OF THE 

sent messengers to Sihon,. king of the Amo- 
rites, with the same stipulations : — •" Let 
me pass through thy land; we will. not turn 
into the fields, or into the vineyards, we will 
not dri?ik of the waters of the well : but we 
will go along by the king's highway, until we 
be past thy borders.''* And when Moses 
in the Book of Deuteronomy recapitulates 
some of the Lord's commands, one of them 
is, as touching the children of Esau, u Med- 
dle not with them ;, for I will, not give 
you their land, no not so much as a foot 
breadth; because I have given Mount Seir 
unto Esau for a possession. Ye shall buy 
meat of them for money, that ye may eatj 
and ye shall also buy water of them for 
money, that ye may drink. ,"£ Indeed the 
well is quite a feature in the narrative of 
Moses, brief as that narrative is. It unob- 

* Numbers xxi. 22. f Deuteronomy ii. 6. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 



129 



trusively but constantly reminds us of our 
scene lying ever in the East — just as the 
Forum could not fail to be perpetually mix- 
ing itself up with the details of any history 
of Rome which was not spurious. The 
well is the spring of life. It is the place of 
meeting for the citizens in the cool of the 
day — the place of resort for the shepherds 
and herdmen — it is here that we may 
witness acts of courtesy or of stratagem- 
acts of religion — acts of civil compact- 
acts commemorative of things past- — it is 
here that the journey ends; it is by this 
that the next is regulated- — hitherto the fu- 
gitive and the outcast repair— here the 
weary pilgrim rests himself — the lack of it 
is the curse of a kingdom, and the pro- 
spect of it in abundance the blessing which 
helps forward the steps of the' stranger 
when he seeks another country. It enters 
as an element into the language itself" of 

g3 



130 THE VERACITY OF THE. 

Holy Writ, and the simile, the illustration, 
the metaphor, are still telling forth the 
great Eastern apophthegm, that of " all 
things water is the first." Of such value 
was the well — so fruitful a source of con- 
tention in those parched and thirsty lands 
was the, possession of a well ! 

Now "applying these passages to the 
question before us, I think it will be seen, 
that the sudden gushing of the water from 
the rock, (which was the sudden discovery 
of an invaluable treasure,) and the subse- 
quent onset of the Amalekites at the very 
same place — for both occurrences are said 
to have happened at Rephidim, though 
given as perfectly distinct and independent 
matters, — do coincide very remarkably with 
one another; and yet so undesigned is the 
coincidence, (if indeed coincidence it is 
after all,) that it might not suggest itself 
even to readers of the Pentateuch whose 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 131 

lot is cast in a torrid clime, and to whom 
the value of a draught of cold water is 
therefore well known : still less to those 
who live in a land of brooks, like our own, 
a land of fountains and depths that spring 
out of the valleys and hills, and who may 
drink of them freely without cost and with- 
out quarrel. 

If then it be admitted, that the issue of 
the torrent from the rock synchronises very 
singularly with the aggression of Amalek, 
yet that the narrative of the two events 
does not hint at any connection whatever 
between them, I think that all suspicion of 
contrivance is laid to sleep, and that what- 
ever force is due to the argument of con- 
sistency without contrivance as a test, and 
as a testimony of truth, obtains here. Yet 
here, as in so many other instances already 
adduced, the stamp of truth, such as it is, 
is found where a miracle is intimately con- 



132 THE, VERACITY OF THE 

cernecj,; for if the coincidence in question 
be thought enough to satisfy us that Moses 
was relating an indisputable matter of fact, 
when he said that the Israelites received a 
supply of water at Rephidim, it adds to our 
confidence that he is relating, an indisputa- 
ble matter of fact, too, when he says in the 
same breath, that it was a miraculous 
supply — where we can prove that there is 
truth in a story so far as a scrutiny of 
our own, which was not contemplated by : 
the party whose words we are trying, ena- 
bles us to go, it is only fair to infer, in the 
absence of all testimony to the contrary, 
that there is truth also in such parts of the 
same story as our scrutiny cannot attain 
unto. And indeed it seems to me, that the 
sin of Amalek on this occasion, a sin which 
was so offensive in God's sight as to be 
treasured up in judgment against that race, 
causing Him eventually to destroy them 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 133 

utterly, derived its heinousness from this 
very thing, that the Amalekites were here 
endeavouring to dispossess the Israelites of 
a vital blessing which God had sent to 
them by miracle, and which he could riot 
so send without making it manifest even to 
the Amalekites themselves, that the chil- 
dren of Israel were under his especial care 
— that in fighting therefore against Israel, 
they were fighting against God. And such, 
I persuade myself, is the true force of an 
expression in Deuteronomy used in refer- 
ence to this very incident — for Amalek is 
there said to " have smitten them when 
they were weary, and to have feared not 
God;"* that is, to have done it in defiance 
of a miracle, which ought to have im- 
pressed them with a fear of God, indicating 
as, of course it did, that God willed not the 
destruction of this people. 

* Deuteronomy xxv. 18. 



134 THE VERACITY OF THE 

XVL 

Amongst the institutions established or 
confirmed by the Almighty whilst the 
Israelites were on their march, for their 
observance when they should have taken 
possession of the land of Canaan, this 
was one — " Three times thou shalt keep 
a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt 
keep the Feast of Unleavened bread : thou 
shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as 
I commanded thee, in the time appointed 
of the month Abib : for in it thou earnest 
out from Egypt : and none shall appear 
before me empty : — And the Feast of Har- 
vest, the first-fruits of thy labours, which 
thou hast sown in thy field : and the 
Feast of In-gathering, which is in the end 
of the year, when thou hast gathered in 
thy labours out of the field."* 

* Exodus xxiii. 14.' 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 135 

Such then were the three great annual 
feasts. The first, in the month Abib, 
which was the Passover. The second, 
which was the Feast of Weeks. The 
third, the Feast of In-gathering, when all 
the fruits, wine and oil as well as corn, 
had been collected and laid up. The sea- 
son of the year at which the first of these 
occurred is all that I am anxious to settle, 
as bearing upon a coincidence which I 
shall mention by and by. Now this is 
determined with sufficient accuracy for 
my purpose, by the second of the three 
being the Feast of Harvest, and the fact 
that the interval between the first and 
second was just seven weeks* " And ye 
shall count unto you from the morrow after 
the Sabbath," (this was the Sabbath of the 
Passover,) " from the day that ye brought 

* Leviticus xxiii. 1 5. 



136 THE VERACITY OP THE 

the sheaf of the wave -offering ; seven* Sab- 
baths shall be complete ; even unto the 
morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye 
number fifty days ; and ye shall offer a new 
meat-offering unto the Lord. Ye shall 
bring out of your habitations two wave- 
loaves of two tenth-deals: they shall be of 
fine flour ; they shall be baken with leaven ; 
they are the first-fruits unto the Lord/' 

At the Feast of Weeks, . therefore, the 
corn was ripe and just gathered, for then 
were the first-fruits to be offered in the 
loaves made out of the new corn. . If then 
the wheat was in this state at the second 
great festival, it must have been very far 
from ripe at the Passover, which was seven 
weeks earlier ; and the wave-sheaf, which, 
as we have ,seen, was to be offered at the 
Passover, naust have been of some grain 

which came in before wheat — it was in 

v .7 .ii i - ■ '■ ■ - ' 

il 3 ■ 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 137 

fact barley* Now does not this agree, in 
a remarkable but most incidental manner, 
with a circumstance mentioned in the de- 
scription of the Plague of Hail ? The hail, 
it is true, was sent some little time pre- 
vious to the destruction of the first-born, 
or the date of the Passover, for the Plague 
of Locusts and the Plague of Darkness in- 
tervened, riut it was evidently only a little 
time, for Moses being eighty years old when 
he went before Pharaoh,f and having walked 
forty years in the wilderness,]; and being 
only a hundred and twenty years old when 
he died,§ it is plain that he could have 
lost very little time by the delay of the 
plagues in Egypt, the period of his life 
being filled up without any allowance for 
such delay. I mention this, because it will 
be seen that the argument requires the 

* See Ruth ii. 23. t Exodus vii. 7. 

% Joshua v. 6. § Deuteronomy xxxiv. 7. 



138 THE VERACITY OF THE 

time of the hail and that of the death of 
the first-born (or in other words the Pass- 
over) to be nearly the same. Now the 
state of the crops in Egypt at the period 
of the hail, we happen to know — was it 
then such as we might have reason to ex- 
pect from the state of the crops of Judea 
at or near the same season ? — i. e. the 
barley ripe, the wheat not ripe by several 
weeks ? 

It is fortunate, inasmuch as it involves a 
point of evidence, that one of the Plagues 
chanced to be that of Hail — for it is the 
only one of them all of a nature to give 
us a clue to the time of year when they 
came to pass, and this it does in the most 
casual manner imaginable, for the mention 
of the hail draws from the historian who 
records it the remark, that " the flax and 
the barley were smitten, for the barley was 
in the ear and the flax was boiled ; but the 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 139 

wheat and the rye were not smitten, for 
they were not grown up/' (or rather per- 
haps, were not out of sheath.*) Now this 
is precisely such a degree of forwardness 
as we should have respectively assigned to 
the barley and wheat — deducing our con- 
clusion from the simple circumstance that 
the seasons in Egypt do not greatly differ 
from those of Judea, and that in the latter 
country wheat was ripe and just gathered 
at the Feast of Weeks, barley just fit for 
putting the sickle into fifty days sooner, or 
at the Passover, which nearly answered 
to the time of the hail. Yet so far from 
obvious is this point of harmony, that 
nothing is more easy than to mistake it ; 
nay, nothing more likely than that we 
should even at first suspect Moses himself 
to have been out in his reckoning, and ' 

* Exodus ix. 32. 



140 THE VERACITY OF THE 

thus to find a knot instead of an argument. 
For on reading- the following- passage,* 
where the rule is given for determining 
the second feast, we might on the instant 
most naturally suppose that the great wheat- 
harvest of Judea was in the month Abib, 
at the Passover-r-" Seven weeks shalt thou 
number unto thee : begin to number the 
seven weeks from such time as thou be- 
ginnest to put the sickle to the corn." Now 
this " putting the sickle to the corn " is at 
once perceived to be at the Passover when 
the wave-sheaf was offered, the ceremony 
from which we see the Feast of Weeks was 
measured and fixed. Yet had the great 
wheat harvest been here actually meant, it 
would have been impossible to reconcile 
Moses with himself, for he would then 
have been representing the wheat to be 

* Deuteronomy xvi. 9. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 141 

ripe in Judea at a season when, ; as we had 
elsewhere gathered from him; it was riot 
grown up or out of the sheath hi Egypt. 
But if the sickle was to be put into some 
grain much earlier than wheat, such as^ 
barley, and if the barley-harvest is here 
alluded to as falling in with the Passover 
and not the wheat-harvest, then all is clear, 
intelligible, and free from difficulty. 

In a word then my argument is this — 
that at the Passover the barley in Judea 
was ripe, but that the wheat was not, seven 
weeks having yet to elapse before the first- 
fruits of the loaves could be offered.' This 
I collect from the History of the Great 
Jewish Festivals. Again, '< that at the 
Plague of Hail (which corresponds with 
the time of the Passover to a few days) 
the barley in Egypt. was smitten, being in 
the ear, but that the wheat was not smitten, 



142 THE VERACITY OF THE 

not being yet boiled. This I collect from 
the History of the Great Egyptian Plagues. 
The two statements, on being compared 
together, agree together. 

I cannot but consider this as very far 
from an unimportant coincidence — tending, 
as it does, to give us confidence in the 
good faith of the historian, even at a mo- 
ment when he is telling of the Miracles of 
Egypt, " the wondrous works that were 
done in the land of Ham." For, supported 
by this circumstantial evidence, which, as 
far as it goes, cannot lie, I feel that I have 
very strong reason for believing that a 
hail -storm there actually was, as Moses 
asserts ; that the season of the year to 
which he assigns it, was the season when 
it did in fact happen ; that the crops were 
really in the state in which he represents 
them to have been — more I cannot prove, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 143 

for further my test will not reach. It is 
not in the nature of miracles to admit of 
its immediate application to themselves. 
But when I see the ordinary circumstances 
which attend upon them, and which are 
most closely combined with them, yielding 
internal evidence of truth, I am apt to think 
that these in a great measure vouch for 
the truth of the rest. Indeed, in all com- 
mon cases, even in judicial cases of life and 
death, the corroboration of the evidence of 
an unimpeached witness in one or two par- 
ticulars is enough to decide a jury that it 
is worthy of credit in every other parti- 
cular — that it may be safely acted upon 
in the most awful and responsible of all 
human decisions. 



144 THE VERACITY. OF THE 



XVII. 

The argument which I have next to pro- 
duce has been urged by Dr. Graves,* 
though others had noticed it before him ;f 
I shall not, however, scruple to introduce 
it here in its order, connected as it is with 
several more, all relating to the economy 
of the camp. The incident on which it 
turns is trifling in itself, but nothing can 
be more characteristic of truth. On the 
day when Moses set up the Tabernacle 
and anointed and sanctified it, the princes 
of the tribes made an offering consisting of 
six wagons and twelve oxen. These are 
accordingly assigned to the service of the 
Tabernacle : " And Moses gave them unto 

* On the Pentateuch, vol. i. p. 111. 

t See Dr. Patrick on Numbers, vii. 7, 8. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 145 

the Levites ; Two waggons and four oxen 
he gave unto the sons of Gershon accord- 
ing to their service, and four waggons and 
eight oxen he gave unto the sons of Merari 
according to their service."* Now whence 
this unequal division ? Why twice as 
many waggons and oxen to Merari as to 
Gershon? No reason is expressly avowed. 
Yet if I turn to a former chapter, sepa- 
rated however from the one which hag. 
supplied this quotation by sundry and 
divers' details of other matters, I am able 
to make out a very good reason for myself. 
For there, amongst the instructions given 
to the families of the Levites as to the 
shares they had severally to take in re- 
moving the Tabernacle from place to place, 
I find that the sons of Gershon had to bear 
" the curtains," and the " Tabernacle " 

* Numbers vii. 7, 8. 

H 



146 THE VERACITY OF THE 

itself, (i.e. the linen of which it was made,) 
and " its covering, and the covering of 
badger's skins that was above upon it, 
and the hanging for the door," and " the 
hangings of the court, and the hanging 
for the door of the gate of the court," and 
" their cords and all the instruments of 
their service ;" * in a word, all the lighter 
part of the furniture of the Tabernacle. 
But the sons of Merari had to bear " the 
boards of the Tabernacle, and the bars 
thereof, and the pullies thereof, and the 
sockets thereof, and the pullies of the court 
round about, and their sockets, and their 
pins, and their cords, with all their instru- 
ments;'^ in short, all the cumbrous and 
heavy part of the materials of which the 
frame-work of the Tabernacle was con- 
structed. And hence it is easy to see why 

* Numbers iv. 25. t Ibid. iv. 32. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 147 

more oxen and waggons were assigned to 
the one family than to the other. Is chance 
at the bottom of all this ? or cunning con^ 
trivance ? or truth, and only truth ? 

XVIII. 

In the tenth chapter of the Book of Num- 
bers we have a particular account of the 
order of march which was observed in the 
Camp of Israel on one remarkable occa- 
sion, viz., when they broke up from Sinai. 
" In the first place went the standard of 
the Camp of Judah according to their 
armies" (v. 14). Does this precedence of 
Judah agree with any former account of 
the disposition of the armies of Israel ? In 
the second chapter of the same book I 
read, " on the East side, toward the rising 
of the Sun, shall they of the standard of 
the camp of Judah pitch throughout their 

h 2 



148 THE VERACITY OF THE 

armies " (v. 3). All that is to be gathered 
from this passage is, that Judah pitched 
East of the Tabernacle. I now turn to 
the tenth chapter, (v. 5 5 ) and I there find 
amongst the orders given for r the signals, 
"when ye blow an alarm, (i.e. the first 
alarm, for the others are mentioned suc- 
cessively in their turn,) then the camps 
that lie on the East parts shall go for- 
ward." But from the last passage it ap- 
pears that Judah lay on the East parts, 
therefore, when the first alarm was blown, 
Judah should be the tribe to move. Thus 
it is implied from two passages brought 
together from two chapters, separated by 
the intervention of eight others relating to 
things indifferent, that Judah was to lead 
in anymarch. Now we see in the account 
of a specific movement of the camp from 
Sinai, with which I introduced these re- 
marks, that on that occasion Judah did in 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 149 

fact lead. This, then, is as it should be. 
The three passages agree together as three 
concurring witnesses — in the mouth of 
these is the word established. Yet there 
is some little intricacy in the details- 
enough at least to leave room for an inad- 
vertant slip in the arrangements, whereby 
a fiction would have run a risk of being 
self-detected. 

Pursue we this inquiry a little farther, 
for the next article of it is perhaps rather 
more open to a blunder of this description 
than the last. It may be thought that the 
leading tribe, the van-guard of Israel, was 
an object too conspicuous to be overlooked 
or misplaced. In the 18th verse of the 
same chapter of Numbers it is said, that 
after the first division was gone, and the 
Tabernacle, " the standard of the camp 
of Reuben set forward according to their 
armies." The camp of Reuben, therefore^ 



150 THE VERACITY OF THE 

was that which moved second on this occa- 
sion. Does this accord with the position 
it was elsewhere said to have occupied 1 
It is obvious that a mistake might here 
most readily have crept in; and that if 
the writer had not been guided by a real 
knowledge of the facts which he was pre i 
tending to describe, it is more than pro- 
bable he would have betrayed himself. 
Turn we then to the 2nd chapter, (v. 10,) 
where the order of the tribes in their tents 
is given, and we there find that il on the 
south side was to be the standard of the 
camp of Reuben, according to their armies." 
Again, let us turn to the 10th chapter, 
(v. 6,) where the directions for the signals 
are given, and we are there told, " When 
ye blow the alarm the second time, then 
the camps on the south side shall take their 
journey ;" — but the passage last quoted 
(which is far removed from this) informs 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 151 

us that Reuben was on the south side of the 
Tabernacle ; the camp of Reuben therefore 
it was which was appointed to move when 
the alarm was blown the second time. 
Accordingly, we see in the description of 
the actual breaking-up from Sinai, with 
which I set out, that the camp of Reuben 
was in fact the second to move. 

The same argument may be followed up, 
and the same satisfactory conclusions ob- 
tained in the other two camps of Ephraim 
and Dan ; though here recourse must be 
had to the Septuagint, of which the text 
is more full in these two latter instances 
than the Hebrew text of our own version, 
and more full precisely upon those points 
which are wanted in evidence.* On such 
a trifle does the practicability of establish- 
ing an argument of coincidence turn ; and 

* Septuagint, Numbers x. 6. 



.152 THE VERACITY OF THE 

so perpetually, no doubt, (were we but 
aware of it,) are we prevented from doing 
justice to the veracity of the writings of 
Moses, by the lack of more abundant' de- 
tails. 

In all this it appears to me, that without 
any care or circumspection of the historian, 
as to how he should make the several parts 
of his tale agree together — without any 
display on the one hand, or mock conceal- 
ment on the other, of a harmony to be 
found in those several parts — and in the 
mean time, with ample scope for the ad- 
mission of unguarded mistakes, by which a 
mere impostor would soon stand convicted, 
the whole is at unity with itself, and the 
internal -evidence resulting from it clear, 
precise, and above suspicion. 
I 

A 



FIVE BOOKS* OF MOSES. 153 

,T[IIfijjteqi9q ' 

i xiX /f 9ia (<*' "*° • vrfiA 

k ££niJfr« IOX51S7 9lfa OJ 35>ii8U(; 

1. The arr^g^m^nt^ of ^e^ri>B provide 
us with another coincidence, no less satis- 
factory , than the last— for it may be < here 
remarked, that in proportion as the history 
of Moses descends to particular!, >(which4t 
does in the camp,) in that propGrtionrlis it 
fertile in the arguments. of which I am at 
present in search. } It is in generaluthenex* 
treme brevity of the history, #nd nothing 
else, that baffles us in,, pur inquiries; often 
affording (as it does) a hint whicfe we? can- 
not pursue for want of details,., and exhibit- 
ing ia glimpse of some corroborative < fact 
which it is vexatious to , be so mfear grasping^, 
and still to be compelled to relinquish it®sq 
In the 16th chapter of the Book of Num- 
bers we read, <c Now Korah the son of Iz- 
har, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi,. 

H 3 



154 THE VERACITY OF THE 

and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, 
and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, 
took men, and they rose up before Moses 
with certain of the congregation of Israel, 
two hundred and fifty princes of the assem- 
bly, famous in the congregation, men of 
renown. And they gathered themselves 
together against Moses and against Aaron, 
and said unto them, Ye take too much upon 
you, seeing all the congregation are holy, 
every one of them, and the Lord is among 
them ; wherefore then lift ye up yourselves 
above the congregation of the Lord ? " # 
Such is the history of the conspiracy got 
up against the authority of the leaders of 
Israel, The principal parties engaged in 
it, we see, were Korah of the family of Ko- 
hathf and Dathan, Abiram, and On, of the 
family of Reuben. Now it is a very curious 

* Numb. xvi. 1. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 155 

circumstance that some thirteen chapters 
before this, chapters occupied with matters 
of quite another character, it is mentioned 
incidentally that " the families of the sons 
of Kohath were to pitch on the side of the 
Tabernacle southward."* And in another 
chapter yet farther back, and as indepen- 
dent of the latter as the latter was of the 
first, we read no less incidentally, " on the 
south side (of the Tabernacle) shall be the 
standard of the camp of Reuben, according 
to their armies."f .The family of Kohath, 
therefore, and the family of Reuben, both 
pitched on the same side of the Tabernacle 
— they were neighbours, and were therefore 
conveniently situated for taking secret coun-r 
sel together. Surely this singular coinci- 
dence comes of truth — not of accident, 
not of design ;— not of accident, for how 

* Numb. iii. 29, t Ibid. ii. 10. 



156 THE VERACITY OF THE 

great is the improbability that such: a pe- 
culiar propriety between the relative situa- 
tions of the parties in the_ conspiracy should 
have been the mere result of chance ; when 
three sides of the Tabernacle were occupied 
by the families of the Levites, and all four 
isides by the families of the tribes, and when 
combinations (arithmetically speaking) to 
so great an extent might have been formed 
between these in their several members, 
without the one in question being of the 
number. It does not come of design, for 
the agreement is not obvious enough to 
suit . a designer's purpose — it might most 
easily escape notice : — it is indeed only to 
be detected by the juxtaposition of several 
unconnected passages falling out at long 
intervals. Then, again, had no such coin- 
cidence been found at all ; had the conspi- 
rators been represented as drawn together 
from more distant parts of the camp, from 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 157 

such parts as afforded no peculiar facilities 
for leaguing together, no objection whatever 
would have lain against the accuracy of the 
narrative on that account. The argument 
indeed for its veracity would then have 
been lost, but that would have been all ; 
no suspicion whatever against its veracity 
would have been thereby incurred. 

2. But there is yet another feature of 
truth in this same most remarkable i por- 
tion of Mosaic history; and this has been 
enlarged upon by Dr. Graves. # I shall 
not however scruple to touch upon it here, 
both because I do not take quite the same 
view of it throughout, and because this in- 
cident combines with the one I have just 
brought forward, and thus acquires a value 
beyond its own, from being a second of its 

kind arising out of one and the same "event 

n n\ &iofm 

* On the Pentateuch, vol. i. p. 1 55. 



158 THE VERACITY OF THE 

—the united value of two incidental marks 
of truth being more than the sum of their 
separate values. Indeed, these two in- 
stances of consistency without design, taken 
together, hedge in the main transaction on 
the right hand and on the left, so as almost 
to close up every avenue through which 
suspicion could insinuate the rejection of 
it. 

On a common perusal of the whole his* 
tory of this rebellion, in the 1 6th chapter 
of Numbers, the impression left would be, 
that, in the punishment of Korah, Dathan, 
and Abiram, there was no distinction or 
difference ; that their tents and all the men 
that appertained unto Korah, and all their 
goods, were destroyed alike. Nevertheless, 
ten chapters after, when the number of the 
children of Israel is taken, and when in the 
course of the numbering, the names of Da- 
than and Abiram occur, there is added the 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 159 

following incidental memorandum — " This 
is that Dathan and Abiram who were famous 
in the congregation, who strove against 
Moses and against Aaron, in the company 
of Korah, when they strove against the 
Lord." Then the death which they died 
is mentioned, and last of all it is said, 
<c Notwithstanding the children of Korah 
died not."* This, at first sight, undoubtedly 
looks like a contradiction of what had gone 
before. Again, then, let us turn back to 
the 16th chapter, and see whether we have 
read it right. Now, though upon a second 
perusal I still find no express assertion that 
there was any difference in the fate of these 
several rebellious households, I think upon 
a close inspection I do find (what answers 
my purpose better) some difference implied. 
For, in verse 27, we are told, " So they gat 

* * Numb. xxvi. 11. 



160 THE. VERACITJ OF THE 

up from the Tabernacle of Koran., Da.than, 
and Abiram, on every side ;"— ^.^ %£&& 
Tabernacle which these men in their politi- 
cal [rebellion .. and religious dissent (for they 
went together) .had set up in common for 
themselves, and their adherents, in opposi- 
tion to the great Tabernacle of the congre- 
gation. "And Dathan and Abiram," it is 
added, "came out and stood in the door of 
their tents ; and their wives, and their sons,, 
and their little children." Here we per- 
ceive that mention is made of the sons of 
Dathan and the sons qf Abiram, but not of 
the sons of Korah. So that the victims of 
the catastrophe about to happen, it should 
seem from this account too, were indeed 
the sons of Dathan and the sons of Abiram, 
but not (in t aJL appearanpe) the sons of Ko- 
rah. Neither is this difference difficult to 
account for. The Levites pitching nearer 
to the labernacle than the other tribes, 



FIVE B60KS OF MOSES. 161 

forming, in fact, three sides of the inner 
square, whilst the 'others formed the four 
sides of the outer, it would necessarily fol 
low that the 'dwelling-tent of Korah, a Le- 
Vite, would be at some distance from the 
dwelling-tents of Dathan and Abiram, Reu- 
benites, and, as brothers, probably contigu- 
ous ; at such a distance, at least, as might 
serve to secure it from being involved in 
the destruction which overwhelmed the 
others: for that the desolation was very 
limited in extent seems a fact conveyed 
by the terms of the warning---" Depart 
from the tents of these wicked men," (i. *e; 
the tabernacle which the three leaders had 
reared in common, and the two dwelling* 
tents of Dathan and Abiram,*) as if the 
danger was confined to the vicinity of those 
tents. 

■ ■ .■'... i \\ j • i .. h ' 

* See chap. xvi. v. 27. An attention to this verse, 
shows these to have been the tents meant. ' 



162 THE VERACITY OF THE 

In this single event, then, the rebellion 
of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, I discover 
two instances of coincidence without de- 
sign, each independent of the other — the 
one, in the conspiracy being laid amongst 
parties whom I know, from information 
elsewhere given, to have dwelt on the same 
side of the Tabernacle, and therefore to have 
been conveniently situated for such a plot 
— the other, in the different lots of the 
families of the conspirators, a difference of 
which there is just hint enough in the di- 
rect history of it, to be brought out by a 
casual assertion to that effect in a subse- 
quent casual allusion to the conspiracy, 
and only just hint enough for this — a dif- 
ference, too, which accords very remark- 
ably with the relative situations of those 
several families in their respective tents. 

But if the existence of a conspiracy be 
by this means established, above all dispute, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 163 

as a matter of fact — if the death of some 
of the families of the conspirators, and 
the escape of others, be also by the same 
means established, above all dispute, as 
another matter of fact — if the testimony of 
Moses, after having been submitted to a test 
which he could never have contemplated or 
been provided against, turn out in these 
particulars at least to be quite worthy of 
credit — to what are we led on? Is not 
the historian still the same; is he not still 
treating of the same incident, when he in 
forms us that the punishment of this" rebel- 
lious spirit was a miraculous punishment? 
that the ground clave asunder that was 
under the ringleaders, and swallowed them 
up_, and their houses, and all the men that 
appertained unto them, and all their goods ; 
so that they, and all that appertained unto 
them, went down alive into the pit, and 
the earth closed upon them, and they 
perished from among the congregation ? 



164 THE VERACITY OF THE 



XX. 

.<• 
The arrangements of the camp suggest 
one point of coincidence more, not per- 
haps so remarkable as the last, yet enough 
so to be admitted amongst others as an in- 
dication of truth in the history. 

In the 32d chapter of Numbers, (v. 1,) 
it is said, f • Now the children of Reube?i, 
^nd the children of Gad, had a very great 
multitude of cattle ; and when they saw the 
land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, that 
behold the place was a place for cattle, the 
children of Gad and the children of Reuben 
came and spake unto Moses, and to Eleazar 
the priest, and unto the princes of the con- 
gregation, saying, Ataroth, and Dibon, and 
Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Ele- 
aleh, and Shebam, and Nebo, and Beon, 



F*I YE BO O KS O F MO SE S . 105 

even the country which the Lord smote 
before the congregation of Israel, is a land 
for cattle, and thy servants have cattle; 
wherefore, said theyV^if we have received 
grace in thy sight, let this land be given 
unto thy servants for a possession, and 
bring us not .oyer Jordan." 

Here was a petition from the tribes of 
Reuben and of Gad, to have a portion as- 
signed them on the east side of Jordan, 
rather than in the land of Canaan. But 
how came the request to be made con- 
jointly by the children of Reuben and the 
children of Gad ? — Was it a mere acci- 
dent?— Was it the simple, ckelumstance 
that these two tribes being rich ej\ sin ^atltle 
than the rest, and seeing that the pasttirage 
was good on the,qasf^ide of Jordan^ desired 
On that account only to e^t^Mish. themselves 
there together, and to sep_ar#e> f$®&%d$ 

.J f>j [foddaaH htm . i il/l bins ? i9sb! 
j . , • | : ;, . t w ■ ■ " bnB 



166 THE VERACITY OF THE 

brethren ? Perhaps something more than 
either. For I read in the 2d chapter of 
Numbers, (v. 10, 14,) that the camp of 
Reuben was on the south side of the taber- 
nacle, and that the tribe of Gad formed a 
division of the camp of Reuben. It may- 
very well be imagined, therefore, that after 
having shared together the perils of the 
long and arduous campaign through the 
wilderness, these two tribes, in addition to 
considerations about their cattle, feeling 

the strong bond of well-tried companion- 

* 

ship in hardships and in arms, were very- 
likely to act with one common council, and 
to have a desire still to dwell beside one 
another, after the toil of battle, as quiet 
neighbours in a peaceful country, where 
they were finally to set up their rest. 
Here again is an incident, I think, beyond 
the reach of the most refined impostor in 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 167 

the world. What vigilance, however alive 
to suspicion, and prepared for it — what 
cunning, however bent upon giving credi- 
bility to a worthless narrative, by insidi- 
ously scattering through it marks of truth 
which should turn up from time to time 
and mislead the reader, would have sug- 
gested one so very trivial, so very far 
fetched, as a desire of two tribes to obtain 
their inheritance together on the same side 
of a river, simply upon the recollection that 
such a desire would fall in very naturally 
with their having pitched their tents sidg 
by side in their previous march through 
the wilderness ? 



168 THE VERACITY OF THE 



XXI. 

Some circumstances in the history of Balak 
and Balaam supply me with another argu- 
ment for the veracity of the Pentateuch. 
But before I proceed to those which I have 
more immediately in my eye, I would ob- 
serve, that the simple fact of a King of 
Moab knowing that a Prophet dwelt in 
Mesopotamia, in the mountains of the 
East, a country so distant from his own, 
in itself supplies a point of harmony favour- 
ing the truth and reality of the narrative. 
For I am led by it to remark this, that 
very many hints may be picked up in the 
writings of Moses, all concurring to esta- 
blish one position, viz., that there was a 
communication amongst the scattered inha- 
bitants of the earth in those early times, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 



169 



a circulation of intelligence, scarcely to be 
expected, and not easily to be accounted 
for. Whether the caravans of merchants, 
which, as we have seen, traversed the 
deserts of the East — whether the unsettled 
and vagrant habits of the descendants of 
Ishmael and Esau, which singularly fitted 
them for being the carriers of news, and 
with whom the great wilderness was alive 
— whether the pastoral life of the Patri- 
archs, and of those who more immediately 
sprung from them, which led them to 
constant changes of place in search of 
herbage — whether the frequent petty wars 
which were waged amongst lawless neigh- 
bours — whether the necessary separation of 
families, the parent hive casting its little 
colony forth to settle on some distant land, 
and the consequent interest and curiosity 
which either branch would feel for the for- 
tunes of the other — whether these were the 



170 THE VERACITY OF THE 

circumstances that encouraged and main- 
tained an intercourse among mankind in 
spite of the numberless obstacles which 
must then have opposed it, and which we 
might have imagined would have inter- 
cepted it altogether ; or whether any other 
channels of intelligence were open of which 
we are in ignorance, sure it is that such 
intercourse seems to have existed to a 
very considerable extent. Thus, far as 
Abraham was removed from the branch of 
his family which remained in Mesopotamia, 
" it came to pass that it was told him, say- 
ing, behold, Milcah, she hath also borne 
children unto thy brother Nahor ; " and 
their names are then added.* In like man- 
ner Isaac and Rebekah appear in their 
turn to have known that Laban had mar- 
riageable daughters ;f and Jacob, when he 

* Genesis xxii. 20. f Ibid, xxviii. 2. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 171 

came back to Canaan after his long sojourn 
in Haran, seems to have known that Esau 
was alive and prosperous, and that he lived 
at Seir, whither he sent a message to him ; # 
and Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, who went 
with her to Canaan on her marriage, is 
found many years afterwards in the family 
of Jacob, for she dies in his camp as he 
was returning from Haran, f and therefore 
must have been sent back again meanwhile, 
for some purpose or other, from Canaan to 
Haran ; and at Elim, in the desert, the 
Israelites discover twelve wells of water and 
three-score and ten palms, the numbers, no 
doubt, not accidental, but indicating that 
some persons had frequented this secluded 
spot acquainted with the sons and grand- 
sons of Jacob ; J and Jethro, the father-in- 

* Genesis xxxii. 3. t Ibid. xxxv. 8. 

X Exodus, xv. 27. 

i 2 



172 THE VERACITY OF THE 

law of Moses, is said " to have heard of all 
that God had done for Moses and for Israel 
his people." * And when Moses, on his 
march, sends a message to Edom, it is 
worded, " thou knowest all the travail that 
hath befallen us — how our fathers went 
down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in 
Egypt a long time,"t together with many 
more particulars, all of which Moses reck- 
ons matters of notoriety to the inhabitants 
of the desert. And on another occasion 
he speaks of " their having heard that the 
Lord was among his people, that he was 
seen by them face to face, that his cloud 
stood over them, and that he went before 
them by day-time in a pillar of cloud, and 
in a pillar of fire by night." % And this 
may, in fact, account for the vestiges of so 

* Exodus xviii. 1. f Numbers xx. 15. 

% Ibid. xiv. 14. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 173 

many laws which we meet with throughout 
the East, even in this very early period, as 
held in common — and the many just notions 
of the Deity, mixed up, indeed, with much 
alloy, which so many nations possessed in 
common — and the rites and customs, whe- 
ther civil or sacred, to which in so many 
points they conformed in common. Now 
all these unconnected matters hint at this 
one circumstance,^ that intelligence travelled 
through the tribes of the Desert more 
freely and rapidly than might have been 
thought ; and the consistency with which 
the writings of Moses imply such a fact, 
(for they neither affirm it, nor trouble them- 
selves about explaining it,) is a feature of 
truth in those writings. 



/ 



174 THE VERACITY OF THE 



XXII. 

Through some or other of the channels 
of information enumerated in the last para- 
graph, Balak, King of Moab, is aware of 
the existence of a Prophet at Pethor, and 
sends for him. It is not unlikely, indeed, 
that the Moabites, who were the children 
of Lot, should have still maintained a com- 
munication with the original stock of all 
which continued to dwell in Aram or Meso- 
potamia. Neither is it unlikely that Pethor, 
which was in that country,* the country 
whence Abraham emigrated, and where 
Nahor and that branch of Terah's family 
remained, should possess a Prophet of the 
true God. Nor is it unlikely again, that, 
living in the midst of idolaters, Balaam 

* Numbers xxiii. 7. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 175 

should in a degree partake of the infection, 
as Laban had done before him in the same 
country ; and that whilst he acknowledged 
the Lord for his God, and offered his vic- 
tims by sevens, (as some patriarchal tradi- 
tion perhaps directed him,)* he should 
have had recourse to enchantments also — 
mixing the profane and sacred, as Laban 
did the worship of his images, with the 
worship of his Maker. All this is in cha- 
racter. Now it was not Balak alone who 
sent the embassy to Balaam. He was but 
King of the Moabites, and had nothing to 
do with Midian. With the elders of 
Midian, however, he consulted, they being 
as much interested as himself in putting a 
stop to the triumphant march of Israel. 
Accordingly we find that the mission to 
the Prophet came from the two people 

* See Job xlii. 8. 



176 THE VERACITY OF THE 

conjointly—" the elders of Moab and the 
elders of Midian departed, with the rewards 
of divination in their hand." # 

In the remainder of this interview, and 
in the one which succeeded it, all mention 
of Midian is dropped, and the ■" princes of 
Balak," and the " servants of Balak," are 
the titles given to the messengers. And 
when Balaam at length consents to accept 
their invitation, it is to Moab, the kingdom 
of Balak, that he comes, and he is received 
by the King at one of his own border-cities, 
near the river of Arnon. Then follows the 
Prophet's fruitless struggle to curse the 
people whom God had blessed, and the 
consequent disappointment of the King, 
who bids him u flee to his place, the Lord 
having kept him back from honour ;" " and 
Balaam rose up," the history concludes, 

* Numbers xxii. 7. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 177 

" and went and returned to his place, and 
Balak, also, went his way."* So they 
parted in mutual dissatisfaction. 

Hitherto, then, although the Elders of 
Midian were concerned in inviting' the Pro- 
phet from Mesopotamia, it does not appear 
that they had any intercourse whatever 
with him on their own account— Balak 
and the Moabites had engrossed' all his 
attention. The subject is now discontin- 
ued : Balak disappears, gone, as we may 
suppose, to his own country again^ to Pe- 
thor, in Mesopotamia^ for he had expressly 
said on parting, "Behold, -I go unto my 
people" f Meanwhile the historian pur- 
sues his onward course, and details, through 
several long chapters, the abandoned pro- 
fligacy of the Israelites, the numbering of 
them according to their families 3 , the me- 
thod by which their portions were to be 

* Numbers xxiy. 25. '''* f Ibid. xxiv. 14. 

i 3 



178 THE VERACITY OF THE 

assigned in the land of promise, the laws 
of inheritance, the choice and appointment 
of a successor, a series of offerings and 
festivals of various kinds, more or less im- 
portant, the nature and obligation of vows, 
and the different complexion they assumed 
under different circumstances enumerated, 
and then (as it often happens in the his- 
tory of Moses, where a battle or a rebellion 
perhaps interrupts a catalogue of rites and 
ceremonies) — then, I say, comes an account 
of an attack made upon the Midianites in 
revenge for their having seduced the people 
of Israel by the wiles of their women. So 
" they slew the kings of Midian, beside the 
rest of them that were slain, viz., Evi, and 
Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five 
kings of Midian ; " and lastly, there is 
added, what we might not perhaps have 
been prepared for, " Balaam also, the son of 
Beor, they slew with the sword"* , 
* Numbers xxxi. 8. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 179 

It seems, then, but how incidentally ! that 
the Prophet did not, after all, return to 
Mesopotamia, as we had supposed. Now 
this coincides in a very satisfactory manner 
with the circumstances under which, we 
have seen, Balaam was invited from Pethor. 
For the deputation, which then waited on 
him, did not consist of Moabites exclu- 
sively, but of Midianites also. When dis- 
missed, therefore, in disgust by the Moab- 
ites, he would not return to Mesopotamia 
until he had paid his visit to the Midianites, 
who were equally concerned in bringing 
him where he was. Had the details of 
his achievements in Midian been given, 
as those in Moab are given, they might 
have been as numerous, as important, and 
as interesting. One thing only, however, 
we are told, that by the counsel which he 
suggested during this visit concerning the 
matter of Peor, and which he probably 



180 THE VERACITY OE THE 

thought was the most likely counsel to 
alienate the Israelites from God, and to 
make Him curse instead of blessing them, 
he caused the children of Israel to commit 
the trespass he anticipated, and to fall into 
the trap which he had provided for them. 
Unluckily for him, however, his stay 
amongst the Midianites was unseasonably 
protracted, and Moses coming upon them, 
as we have seen, by command of God, 
slew them and him together. The unde- 
signed coincidence lies in the Elders of 
Moab and the Elders of Midia?i going to 
Balaam ; in Midian being then mentioned 
no more, till Balaam, having been sent 
away from Moab, apparently that he might 
go home, is subsequently found a corpse 
amongst the slaughtered Midianites, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 181 

f 

I i , - ■ ■ . ■ • . 

xxiii. .... 

In the consequences which followed from 
this evil counsel of Balaam, I fancy I dis- 
cover another instance of coincidence with- 
out design. It is this. — As a punishment 
for the sin of the Israelites in partaking of 
the worship of Baal-Peor, God is said to 
have sent a Plague upon them. Who were 
the leaders in this defection from the Al- 
mighty, and in this shameless adoption of 
the abomination of the Moabites, is not 
disclosed — nor indeed whether any one 
tribe were more guilty before God than 
the rest — only it is said that the number 
of " those who died in the Plague was 
twenty and four thousand." * I read, how- 
ever, that the name of a certain Israelite 

* Numbers xxv. 9. 



182 THE VERACITY OF THE 

that was slain on that occasion, (who, in 
the general humiliation and mourning, de- 
fied, as it were, the vengeance of the Most 
High, and determined, at all hazards, to 
continue in the lusts to which the idolatry 
had led,) I read, I say, that " the name of 
this Israelite that was slain, even that was 
slain with the Midianitish woman, was 
Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief 
house among the Simeonites"* And very 
great importance is attached to this act of 
summary punishment — as though this one 
offender, a prince of a chief house of his 
tribe, was a representative of the offence of 
many — for on Phinehas, in his holy indig- 
nation, putting him to instant death, the 
Plague ceased. " So the Plague was stayed 
from the children of Israel." f 

Shortly after this a census of the people 

* Numbers xxv. 14. f Ibid. xxv. 8. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 183 

is taken. All the tribes are numbered^ and 
a separate account is given of each. Now 
in this I observe the following particular — 
that, although on comparing this census 
with the one which had been made nearly 
forty years before at Sinai, it appears that 
the majority of the tribes had meanwhile 
increased in numbers, and none of them 
very materially diminished,* the tribe of 
Simeon had lost almost two-thirds of its 
whole body, being reduced from " fifty -nine 
thousand and three hundred,"f to " twenty- 
two thousand and two hundred." J No 
reason is assigned for this extraordinary 
depopulation of this one tribe — no hint 
whatever is given as to its eminence in 
suffering above its fellows. Nor can I 
pretend to say that we can detect the 
reason with any certainty of being right, 

* Compare Numbers, 1, and Numbers, 26. 
t Ibid. i. 23. % Ibid. xxvi. 14. 



184 THE VERACITY OF THE 

though the fact speaks for itself that Lie 
tribe of Simeon must have experienced dis- 
aster beyond the rest. Yet it does seem 
very natural to think, that, in the recent 
Plague, the tribe to which Zimri belonged, 
who is mentioned as a leading person in 
it with great emphasis, was the tribe upon 
which the chief fury of the scourge fell — 
as having been that which had been the chief 
transgressors in the idolatry. 

Moreover, that such was the case_, I am 
further inclined to believe from another 
circumstance. One of the last great acts 
which Moses was commissioned to perform 
before his death, has a reference to this 
very affair of Baal-Peor. " Avenge the 
children of Israel," says, God to him, "of 
the Midianites, afterwards thou shalt be 
gathered uiito thy people."* Moses did so : 

-sjJoaicijiail id 

* Numbers xxxi. 2. 



FIVE B © OK S O Ft M O S ES. 1 SSi 

but before he < actually was gathered to his 
people, and while the recent extermination 
of this guilty nation must have been fresh 
in- his mind, he proceeds' to pronounce a 
parting blessing on the tribes. Now it is 
singular,' and except upon some such sup- 
position as this I am maintaining, unac- 
countable, that whilst he deals out the 
bounties of earth and heaven with a prodi- 
gal hand upon all the others, the tribe of 
Simeon he passes over in silence, and none 
but the tribe of Simeon — for this he has no 
blessing* — an omission which should .seem 

* Deuteronomy xxxiii. 6. It is nothing but fair to 
state that the reading of the Codex Alexandr. is t,r\T^ 
'Povfirjv koci jjirj cnroSciverit), kat ^vfxetbv eario ttoXvq kv 
api$n<j). " Let Reuben live and not die, and let Simeon 
be many in number." This reading, however, the Codex 
Vaticanus, the rival MS. of the Alexandrine, and at 
least its equal in authority, does not recognise : neither 
is it found in the Hebrew text, nor in any of the various 
readings of that text as given by Dr. Kennicott — nor in 



186 THE VERACITY OF THE 

to have some meaning, and which does in 
fact, as I apprehend, point to this same 
matter of Baal-Peor. For if that was pre- 
eminently the offending tribe, nothing could 
be more likely than that Moses, fresh, as I 
have said, from the destruction of the 
Midianites for their sin, should remember 
their principal partners in it too, and should 
think it hard measure to slay the one, and 
forthwith bless the other. Nor can I help 
remarking, in further support of this con- 
jecture^ that the little consideration paid to 



the Samaritan — nor in the early Versions. It is difficult 
to believe that the name of Simeon should have been 
omitted in so many instances by mistake ; whilst it is 
easy to suppose that it might have been introduced in 
some one instance by design, the transcriber not aware 
of any cause for the exclusion of this one tribe, and say- 
ing, " Peradventure, it is an oversight." Moreover, the 
blessing of Reuben thus curtailed, " Let Reuben live, 
and not die," seems tame, and unworthy the party and 
the occasion. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 187 

this tribe by their brethren shortly after- 
wards, in the allotment of the portions of 
the Holy Land, implies it to have been in 
disgrace — their inheritance being only the 
remnant of that assigned to the children of 
Judah, which was too much for them;* 
and so inadequate to their wants did it 
prove, that in after-times they sent forth a 
colony even to Mount Seir. 

Admitting, then, the fact to be as I have 
supposed, it supports (as in so many other 
cases already mentioned) the credibility of 
a miracle. For the name of the audacious 
ofTender points incidentally to the offending 
tribe — the extraordinary diminution of that 
tribe points to some extraordinary cause of 
the diminution — the pestilence presents 
itself as a probable cause — and if the real 

* Joshua xix. 9. 



188 THE VERACITY OF THE 

cause, then it becomes the judicial punish- 
ment of a transgression, a miracle wrought 
by God (as Moses would have it), in token 
that his wrath was kindled against Israel. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 189 



CONCLUSION. 

Here, then, I make an end ; not that I 
believe the subject exhausted, for I doubt 
not that many examples of coincidence 
without design in the writings of Moses 
have escaped me, which others may detect, 
as one eye will often see what another has 
overlooked. Still I cannot account for the 
number and nature of those which I have 
been able to produce on any other principle 
than the veracity of the narrative which 
presents them ; — accident could not have 
touched upon truth so often — design could 
not have touched upon it so artlessly; the 
less so, because these coincidences do not 
discover themselves in certain detached and 
isolated passages, but break out from time 



190 THE VERACITY OF THE 

to time as the history proceeds, running- 
witnesses (as it were) to the accuracy not 
of one solitary detail, but of a series of 
details, extending through the lives and 
actions of many different individuals, re- 
lating to many different events, and dating 
at many different points of time. For, I have 
travelled through the writings of Moses, 
beginning from the history of Abraham, 
when a sojourner in the land of Canaan, 
and ending with a transaction which hap- 
pened on the borders of that land, when 
the descendants of Abraham, now numerous 
as the stars in heaven, were about to enter 
and take possession. I have found in the 
progress of this chequered series of events, 
the marks of truth never deserting us — I 
have found (to recapitulate as briefly as 
possible) consistency without design in the 
many hints of a Patriarchal Church inci- 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 191 

dentally scattered through the Book of 
Genesis taken as a whole — I have found it 
in particular instances ; in the impassioned 
terms wherein the Father of the Faithful 
intercedes for a devoted city, of which his 
brother s son was an inhabitant — in the cir- 
cumstance of his own son receiving in 
marriage the grand- daughter of his brother, 
a singular confirmation that he was the 
child of his parent's old age, the miraculous 
offspring of a sterile bed — I have found it 
in the several oblique intimations of the 
imbecility and insignificance of Bethuel — in 
the concurrence of Isaac's meditation in the 
field, with the fact of his mother's recent 
death — and in the desire of that Patriarch 
on a subsequent occasion to impart the 
blessing, as compared with what seem to be 
symptoms of a present and serious sickness 
— I have found it in the singular command 



192 THE VERACITY OF THE 

of Jacob to his followers, to put away their 
idols, as compared with the sacking of an 
idolatrous city, and the capture of its idola- 
trous inhabitants shortly before — I have 
found it in the identity of the character of 
Jacob, a character offered to us in many 
aspects and at many distant intervals, but 
still ever the same — I have found it in the 
lading of the camels of the Ishmaelitish 
merchants, as compared with the mode of 
sepulture amongst the Egyptians — in the 
allusions to the corn-crop of Egypt, thrown 
out in such a variety of ways, and so inad- 
vertently in all, as compared one with ano- 
ther — I have found it in the proportion of 
that crop permanently assigned to Pharaoh, 
as compared with that which was taken up 
by Joseph for the famine ; and in the very 
natural manner in which a great revolution 
of the state is made to arise out of a tern- 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 193 

porary emergency — I have found it in the 
tenderness with which the property of the 
priests was treated, as compared with the 
honour in which they were held by the 
king, and the alliance which had been 
formed with one of their families by the 
minister of the king — I have found it in the 
character of Joseph, which, however and 
whenever we catch a glimpse of it, is still 
one: and whether it be gathered from his 
own words or his own deeds, from the lan- 
guage of his father or from the language of 
his brethren, is still uniform throughout — 
I have found it in the death of Nadab and 
Abihu, as compared with the remarkable 
law which follows touching the use of wine 
— and in the removal of their corpses by 
the sons of Uzziel, as compared with the 
defilement of certain in the camp about the 
same time by the dead body of a man — I 
have found it in the gushing of water from 

K 



194 THE VERACITY OF THE 

the rock at Rephidim, as compared with the 
attack of the Amalekites which followed 
— in the state of the crops in Judea at the 
Passover, as compared with that of the crops 
in Egypt at the plague of Hail — in the pro- 
portion of oxen and waggons assigned to 
the several families of the Levites, as com- 
pared with the different services they had 
respectively to discharge — I have found it 
in the order of march observed in one par- 
ticular case, when the Israelites broke up 
from Mount Sinai, as compared with the 
general directions given in other places for 
pitching the tents and sounding the alarms 
— I have found it in the peculiar propriety 
of the grouping of the conspirators against 
Moses and Aaron, as compared with their 
relative situations in the camp — consisting, 
as they do, of such a family of the Levites 
and such a tribe of the Israelites as dwelt 
on the same side of the Tabernacle, and 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 195 

therefore had especial facilities for clan- 
destine intercourse — I have found it in an 
inference from the direct narrative, that the 
families of the conspirators did not perish 
alike, as compared with a subsequent most 
casual assertion, that though the households 
of Dathan and Abiram were destroyed, the 
children of Korah died not — I have found it 
in the desire expressed conjointly by the 
Tribe of Reuben and the Tribe of Gad to 
have lands allotted them together on the 
east side of Jordan, as compared with their 
contiguous position in the camp during their 
long and trying march through the wilder- 
ness — I have found it in the uniformity with 
which Moses implies a free communication to 
have subsisted amongst the scattered inha- 
bitants of the East — in the unexpected dis- 
covery of Balaam amongst the dead of the 
Midia?iites, though he had departed from 

k2 



196 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Moab apparently to return to his own coun- 
try, as compared with the united embassy 
that was sent to invite him — and, finally, I 
have found it in the extraordinary diminu- 
tion of the Tribe of Simeon, as compared 
with the occasion of the death of Zimri, a 
chief of that tribe, the only individual whom 
Moses thinks it necessary to name, and the 
victim by which the Plague is appeased. 

These indications of truth in the Mosaic 
writings, (to which, as I have said, others 
of the same kind might doubtless be added,) 
may be sometimes more, sometimes less 
strong ; still they must be acknowledged, I 
think, on a general review, and when taken 
in the aggregate, to amount to an argument 
of great cumulative weight — an argument 
of a nature,, I confess, which carries more 
satisfaction to my mind, than one perhaps 
of greater learning and more extensive re- 
search. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 197 

I. It is popular, intelligible, independent 
^—springing out of the documents, the truth 
of which it is intended to sustain, and ter- 
minating in them ; so that he who has 
these, has the defence of them. 

II. It is an argument which combats with 
success many captious objections, such for 
instance as may arise out of the alleged 
corruption of a text ; out of the difficulty 
of determining the precise nature of inspi- 
ration, and the vlike — for, suppose a few 
passages in the Books of Moses have been 
added by a later hand, (perhaps only one 
such can be pointed out with any cer- 
tainty,*) or suppose the specific mode of 
the Spirit's guidance of the sacred penman 
may be a question ministering strife, still 
the argument which I have been handling 



* Deut. xxxiv. See Appendix to Dr. Graves, on 
the Pentateuch, vol. i. 367 ; and Bishop Kidder on the 
Author of the Pentateuch. 



198 THE VERACITY OF THE 

replies to such difficulties by one broad 
consideration — here undoubtedly are un- 
designed coincidences presenting themselves 
everywhere; marks of truth which nothing 
can gainsay. How the truth was commit- 
ted to the sacred writings in the first in- 
stance ; or being committed to them, how 
it has been preserved uncorrupt, I am little 
concerned about — the truth, on the whole, 
I feel that I have, and that suffices. 

III. It is an argument which has the ad- 
vantage of consisting of parts, one or more 
of which (if they be thought unsound) may 
be detached without any dissolution of the 
reasoning as a whole. 

IV. And lastly, though it cannot be said 
to establish the truth of the Scripture mi- 
racles, it goes very near it, by establishing 
the truth in very many instances of ordinary 
circumstances which involve the miracles, 
which compass the ^miracles roundabout, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 199 

which cannot be separated from the mi- 
racles without the utter laceration of the 
history itself. 

The argument of coincidence without de- 
sign, then, is that on which I should not 
fear to rest the veracity of the Books of 
Moses — an argument the more valuable in 
the present instance, because the extreme 
antiquity of the documents precludes any 
evidence arising out of contemporary his- 
tory — but this, though the only one here 
urged, is very far from the only one of 
which the subject admits. For example — 

I. There is a minuteness in the details of 
the Mosaic writings, which bespeaks their 
truth ; for it often bespeaks the eye-witness, 
as in the adventures of the wilderness ; and 
often seems intended to supply directions 
to the artificer, as in the construction of the 
Tabernacle. 



200 THE VERACITY OF THE 

II. There are touches of nature in the 
narrative which bespeak its truth, for it is 
not easy to regard them otherwise than as 
strokes from the life — as where " the mixed 
multitude," whether half-castes or Egyp- 
tians, are the first to sigh for the cucum- 
bers and melons of Egypt, and to spread 
discontent through the camp * — as, the 
miserable exculpation of himself, which 
Aaron attempts, with all the cowardice of 
conscious guilt — " I cast into the fire, and 
there came out this calf:" the fire, to be 
sure, being in the fault f '. 

III. There are certain little inconveniences 
represented as turning up unexpectedly, 
that bespeak truth in the story ; for they 
are just such accidents as are characteristic 
of the working of a new system and untried 
machinery. What is to be done with the 

* Numb. xi. 4. t Exod. xxxii. 24. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 201 

man who is found gathering sticks oil the 
sabbath-day * — (Could an impostor have 
devised such a trifle?) - How the inherit- 
ance of the daughters of Zelophehad is to 
be disposed of, there being no heir-male -f\ 
Either of them inconsiderable matters in 
themselves, but both giving occasion to 
very important laws ; the one touching life, 
and the other property. 

IV. There is a simplicity in the manner 
of Moses, when telling his tale, which be- 
speaks its truth — no parade of language, no 
pomp of circumstance even in his miracles, 
a modesty and dignity throughout all. Let 
us but compare him in any trying scene 
with Josephus ; his description, for in- 
stance, of the passage through the Red 
Sea J, of the murmuring of the Israelites 
and the supply of quails and manna, with 

* Numb. xv. 32. t Numb, xxxvi. 2. 

% Exod. xiv. Joseph. Antiq. b. 2. c. xvi. 

K 3 



202 THE VERACITY OF THE 

the same as given by the Jewish historian, 
or rhetorician, we might rather say, — and 
the force of the observation will be felt *. 

V. There is a candour in the treatment of 
his subject by Moses, which bespeaks his 
truth ; as when he tells of his own want of 
eloquence, which unfitted him for a leader f 
—his own want of faith, which prevented 
him from entering the promised land J — 
the idolatry of Aaron his brother § — the 
profaneness of Nadab and Abihu, his ne- 
phews || — the disaffection - and punishment 
of Miriam, his sister ^[ — the relationship 
which Amram his father bare to Jochebed, 
his mother, which became afterwards one 
of the prohibited degrees in the marriage 
tables of the Levitical law ## . 



* Exod. xvi. Joseph. Antiq. b. 3. c. 1. 

f Ibid. iv. 10. J Numb. xx. 12. 

§ Ibid, xxxii. 21. || Levit. x. 1. % Numb. xii. 1. 

** Comp. Exod. vi. 20, and Levit. xviii. 12. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 203 

VI. There is a disinterestedness in his 
conduct, which bespeaks him to be a man 
of truth ; for though he had sons, he ap- 
parently takes no measures during his life 
to give them offices of trust or profit ; and 
at his death he appoints as his successor, 
one who had no claims upon him, either of 
alliance, of clan-ship, or of blood. 

VII. There are certain prophetical pas- 
sages in the writings of Moses, which be- 
speak their truth : as several respecting the 
future Messiah ; and the very sublime and 
literal one respecting the final fall of Jeru- 
salem *. 

VIII. There is a simple key supplied by 
these writings, to the meaning of many 
ancient traditions current amongst the 
heathens, though greatly disguised, which 
is another circumstance that bespeaks their 

* Deut. xxviii. 



204 THE VERACITY OF THE 

truth — as, the golden age- — the garden of 
the Hesperides — the fruit-tree in the midst 
of the garden which the dragon guarded — 
the destruction of mankind by a flood, all 
except two persons, and those righteous 
persons — 

" Innocuos ambos, cultores numinis ambos :* " 
the rainbow, " which Jupiter set in the 
cloud, a sign to men "I — the seventh day a 
sacred day J — with many others : all con- 
spiring to establish the reality of the facts 
which Moses relates, because tending to 
show that vestiges of the like present them- 
selves in the traditional history of the world 
at lar^e. 

IX. The concurrence which is found be- 
tween the writings of Moses and those of 
the New Testament, bespeaks their truth : 
the latter constantly appealing to them, 

* Ovid, Met. i. 327. t Horn. II. xi. 27, 28. 

J See Grot, de Verit. Rel. Christ. I. 1. xvi. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 205 

being indeed but the completion of the 
system which the others are the first to 
put forth. Nor is this an illogical argu- 
ment — for, though the credibility of the 
New Testament itself may certainly be 
reasoned out from the truth of the Penta- 
teuch once established, it is still very far 
from depending on that circumstance ex- 
clusively, or even principally. The New 
Testament demands acceptance on its own 
merits, on merits distinct from those on 
which the Books of Moses rest — there- 
fore (so far as it does so) it may fairly give 
its suffrage for their veracity — valeat quan- 
tum valet — and surely it is a very impro- 
bable thing, that two dispensations, sepa- 
rated by an interval of some fifteen hun- 
dred years, each exhibiting prophecies of 
its own, since fulfilled — each asserting mi- 
racles of its own, on strong evidence of its 



206 THE VERACITY OF THE 

own — that two dispensations, with such in- 
dividual claims to be believed, should also 
be found to stand in the closest relation to 
one another, and yet both turn out impos- 
tures after all. 

X. Above all, there is a comparative 
purity in the theology and morality of the 
Pentateuch, which argues not only its 
truth, but its high original; for how else 
are we to account for a system like that of 
Moses, in such an age and amongst such a 
people ; that the doctrine of the unity, the 
self-existence, the providence, the perfec- 
tions of the great God of heaven and earth, 
should thus have blazed forth (how far more 
brightly than even in the vaunted schools 
of Athens at its most refined era! from 
the midst of a nation, of themselves ever 
plunging into gross and grovelling idolatry ; 
and that principles of social duty, of bene- 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 207 

volence, and of self-restraint, extending 
even to the thoughts of the heart,* should 
have been the produce of an age, which 
the very provisions of the Levitical Law 
itself show to have been full of savage and 
licentious abominations? 

Such are some of the internal evidences 
for the veracity of the Books of Moses. 

XI. Then the situation in which the 
Jews actually found themselves placed, as 
a matter of fact, is no slight argument for 
the truth of the Mosaic accounts ; reminded, 
as they were, by certain memorials observed 
from year to year, of the great events of 
their early history, just as they are re- 
corded in the writings of Moses — memo- 
rials universally recognised both in their 
object and in their authority. The Pass- 

* Exod. xx. 3. Deut. vi. 4. Exod. iii. 14. 

Deut. xi. 14. Levit. xix. 2. Levit. xix. 18. 

D&it. xxx. 6. Exod. xx. 17. 



208 THE VERACITY OF THE 

over, for instance, celebrated by all— no 
man doubting its meaning, no man in all 
Israel assigning to it any other origin than 
one^ viz. that of being a contemporary 
monument of a miracle displayed in favour 
of the people of Irsael ; by right of which 
credentials, and no other, it summoned 
from all quarters of the world, at great 
cost, and inconvenience, and danger, the 
dispersed Jews — none disputing the obli- 
gation to obey the summons. 

XII. Then the heroic devotion with which 
the Israelites continued to regard the Law, 
even long after they had ceased to culti- 
vate the better part of it, even when that 
very Law only served to condemn its wor- 
shippers, so that they would offer them- 
selves up by thousands, with their children 
and wives, as martyrs to the honour of 
their temple, in which no image, even of 
an emperor, who could scourge them with 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 209 

scorpions for their disobedience, should be 
suffered to stand, and they live* — so that 
rather than violate the sanctity of the Sab- 
bath Dav, the bravest men in arms would 
lay down their lives as tamely as sheep, 
and allow themselves to be burnt in the 
holes where they had taken refuge from 
their cruel and cowardly pursuers. •(* All 
this points to their Law, as having been 
at first promulgated under circumstances 
too awful to be forgotten even after the 
lapse of ages. 

XIII. Then again, the extraordinary de- 
gree of national pride with which the Jews 
boasted themselves to be God's 'peculiar 
people, as if no nation ever was or ever 
could be so nigh to Him ; a feeling which 
the early teachers of Christianity found an 
insuperable obstacle to the progress of the 

* Joseph. Bell. Jud. b. 2. c. x. § 4. 
t Antiq. Jud. b. 12. c. vi. § 2. 



210 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Gospel amongst them, and which actually 
did effect its ultimate rejection — this may- 
well seem to be founded upon a strong 
traditional sense of uncommon tokens of 
the Almighty's regard for them above all 
other nations of the earth, which they had 
heard with their ears, or their fathers had 
declared unto them, even the noble works 
that He had done in the old time before 
them. 

XIV. Then again, the constant craving 
after " a sign," which beset them in the 
latter days of their history, as a lively cer- 
tificate of the prophet ; and not after a sign 
only, but after such an one as they would 
themselves prescribe, " What sign showest 
thou that we may see and believe, our 
fathers did eat manna in the desert ;" # this 
desire, so frequently expressed, and with 

* John vi. 31. 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 211 

which they are so frequently reproached, 
looks like the relic of an appetite engen- 
dered in other times, when they had en- 
joyed the privilege of more intimate com- 
munion with God — it seems the wake, as 
it were, of miracles departed. 

XV. Lastly, the very onerous nature of 
the Law — so studiously meddling with all 
the occupations of life, great and small — 
this yoke would scarcely have been en- 
dured, without the strongest assurance on 
the part of those who were galled by it, of 
the authority by which it was imposed. 
For it met them with some restraint or 
other at every turn. Would they plough? 
• — Then it must not be with an ox and an 
ass. Would they sow? — Then must not 
the seed be mixed. Would they reap? — 
Then must they not reap clean. Would 
they make bread? — Then must they set 
apart dough enough for the consecrated 



212 THE VERACITY OF THE 

Joaf. Did they find a bird's nest ? — Then 
must they let the old bird fly away. Did 
they hunt? — Then they must shed the 
blood of their game, and cover it with dust. 
Did they plant a fruit tree? — For three 
years was the fruit to be uncircumcised. 
Did they shave their beards ? — They were 
not to cut the corners. Did they weave 
a garment? — Then must it be only with 
threads prescribed. Did they build a house? 
— They must put rails and battlements on 
the roof. Did they buy an estate? — At 
the year of Jubilee, back it must go to its 
owner. All these (and how many more of 
the same kind might be named !) are en- 
actments which it must have required ex- 
traordinary influence in the Lawgiver to 
enjoin, and extraordinary reverence for his 
powers to perpetuate. 

Still, after all, unbelievers may start dif- 
ficulties, — this I dispute not; difficulties, 



FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 213 

too, which we may not always be able to 
answer, though I think we may be always 
able to neutralize them; it may be a part 
of our trial, that such difficulties should 
exist and be encountered, for there can be 
no reason why temptations should not be 
provided for the natural pride of our un- 
derstanding, as well as for the natural lusts 
of our flesh ; to many, indeed, they would 
be the more formidable of the two, perhaps 
to the angels who kept not their first estate 
they proved so ;* with such facts, however, 
before me, as these which I have submitted 
to my readers, I can come to no conclusion 
but one — that when we read the writings 
of Moses, we read no cunningly devised 
fables, but solemn and safe records of 
great and marvellous events, which court 
examination and sustain it — records of that 

*" See Hooker, Eccles. Pol. b. 1. iv. 



214 FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES. 

apparent veracity and faithfulness, that I 
can understand our Lord to have spoken 
almost without a figure, when he said, that 
he who believed not Moses, neither would 
he be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead. 



THE END. 



William Clowes and Sons, Stamford-street. 



MR. BLUNT'S WORKS. 



rpHE VERACITY of the BIBLE, Argued from 
undesigned Coincidences to be found in it, when compared 
in its several parts. 

By the Rev. J. J. Blunt. 

I. VERACITY of the FIVE BOOKS of MOSES. 

Post 8vo., 5s. 6d. 

II. VERACITY of the OLD TESTAMENT, from 
the conclusion of the Pentateuch to the opening of the Prophets. 
Post 8vo., 6s. 6d.; being the Hulsean Lectures for the year 1831. 

III. VERACITY of the GOSPEL and ACTS. 
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APPLIED. Together with an incidental Argument for the 
Truth of the RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD ; being the 
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" This is a new application of the principles on which Paley 
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and the clearness and liveliness of his language are such that we 
cannot too earnestly recommend the work to those Parents who 
feel the want of books calculated to interest, as well as instruct, 
young readers." — Quarterly Review. 

" Mr. Blunt has already signalized himself by his work on the 
Acts of the Apostles, as a very successful disciple of Dr. Paley, 
in the management of that species of Christian evidence, which 
arises froni the discovery of undesigned coincidence of revealed 
truth. This volume cannot fail to increase his reputation. It is 
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talents, learning, and piety of the respected author." — Evangelical 
Magazine, June, 1830. 

" We think Mr. Blunt's clever and very ingenious web of argu- 
ment will be read with pleasure, as it certainly must with profit.' * 
Monthly Review. 



JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle-street. 



M. 



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